by Keats · Cluster: Sleep · Sleeper Awakes · Resurrection
Abstract
A short meditative lyric likening death to sleep and life to a dream, questioning why men cling to a life of woe; its central matter is mortality and the transience of earthly pleasure.
Connections
Topoi: Memento Mori Motifs: Death, Sleep, Dreams Themes & Concepts: Mortality, Transience Forms & Genres: Lyric
Testo integrale / Full text
I
Can death be sleep, when life is but a dream,
And scenes of bliss pass as a phantom by?
The transient pleasures as a vision seem,
And yet we think the greatest pain’s to die.
II
How strange it is that man on earth should roam,
And lead a life of woe, but not forsake
His rugged path; nor dare he view alone
His future doom which is but to awake.