GOLDEN SLUMBERS

By thomas dekker

Golden slumbers kiss your eyes,

Smiles awake you when you rise.
Sleep, pretty wantons, do not cry,
And I will sing a lullaby:
Rock them, rock them, lullaby.

Care is heavy, therefore sleep you;

You are care, and care must keep you.
Sleep, pretty wantons, do not cry,
And I will sing a lullaby:
Rock them, rock them, lullaby.
 Analiysis
-Metaphors

‘Gold’

‘kiss[es]’

‘smiles awake’

-Symbolism:

‘care is heavy’

-Themes

This poem is a nice contrast with ‘I Grieve, and Dare Not Show my Discontent’. Elizabeth’s duties and the
worries of the powerful are a stark contrast to the serenity and tranquillity of a baby’s existence. Parents
carry all worries and the baby has no duty, but to sleep a blissful sleep.

-Content

This isn’t going to be long as you’ll notice there are only two lines and a chorus in each stanza. The
opening stanza gives us an image of a baby looking beautiful in its sleep (probably innocent, content,
peaceful) and the certainty that the baby will awake to love and happiness as greeted by its parents’
smiles.

Next we have the express hope that worries and troubles will be kept away from this child. The
wordplay in the second line suggests that the baby is someone else’s thing to care for and that therefore
it should be unburdened as the parents do all the worrying for it.

The chorus is a way to sooth the child to sleep and as such is repetitive and uses soft vowel sounds.

-Language and Techniques

Let’s start with the phrase ‘golden slumbers’. Gold should suggest richness that shows the value of being
carefree and serene. The fact it ‘kiss[es]‘ the eyes shows that the baby looks beautiful while asleep, the
contented slumber draining any sorrow away.

The phrase ‘smiles awake’, at the beginning of the second stanza, tell us that the baby is be watched
carefully by loving parents. Once the slumber is over, this baby will be confronted by love and happiness
rather than troubles and worries.

Dekker uses ‘care’ to mean several things. First, ‘care is heavy’ meaning that troubles and worries weigh
us down and make life difficult. Then the baby is described as ‘care’ for someone else, as its parents
have to watch over and worry about its health and happiness, so the baby is something for them to
‘care’ or worry about, but the baby itself is always kept free from worry.

The chorus. Notice the repetition of ‘lullaby’ and ‘rock them’ and the gentle rhyme at the end of each
line. This is designed to be read softly and be soothing. It is describing the actions of the person singing it
– ‘sing a lullaby’, while they ‘rock’ the baby to sleep.

The phrase ‘pretty wantons’ is a little oxymoronic as it implies some naughtiness, but really this lullaby is
hyperbolic about the beauty and innocence of this child.
-Structure

I’ve already mentioned quite a bit.

The lullaby chorus is repetitive and uses gentle sounds like ‘lull’ as a way of creating a soothing tune that
will help a baby fall asleep.

We have a rhyming couplet and then triplet for the chorus, which are all simply one syllable rhymes that
reflect the necessary simplicity of a lullaby and are softly read.

Elements of the verse:

The information we provided is prepared by means of a special computer program. Use the criteria
sheet to understand greatest poems or improve your poetry analysis essay.

Rhyme scheme: aaBCCddBCC

Stanza lengths (in strings): 10,

Closest metre: iambic tetrameter

Сlosest rhyme: alternate rhyme

Сlosest stanza type: sonnet

Guessed form: ballad stanza

Amount of stanzas: 1

Average number of symbols per stanza: 334

Average number of words per stanza: 59

Amount of lines: 10

Average number of symbols per line: 33 (medium-length strings)

Average number of words per line: 6

Mood of the speaker:

The punctuation marks are various. Neither mark predominates

Sastra Inggris

ANALYSIS POEEM

Disusun oleh:
Muhamad Arafat

SEKOLAH MENENGAH ATAS NEGERI 1 KULISUSU

KABUPATEN BUTON UTARA

TAHUN 2023/2024