The sonnet begins with an invocation to sleep, which is personified and given an
extravagant set of titles, beginning with those that emphasize the restorative qualities of
sleep and continuing to include its levelling effect. In sleep, the prisoner may be free and the
poor man rich; it equalizes the high and low.
The second quatrain becomes
more personal. The poet asks, in an alliterative line, for sleep's protection from the
"darts despair at me doth throw." The reference to "civil wars" in the next
line makes it clear that the poet seeks respite from internal as well as external
conflict.
Although this is an English sonnet (consisting of four quatrains
and a, rather than the Italian form of an octave and a sestet), there is something of a turn in
the third quatrain as the poet seeks suitable gifts to tempt sleep. The best gift he can
imagine, however, is reserved for the final couplet: It is the image of Stella in his dreams,
suggesting that the poet, as well as being weary,...
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