Asleep by Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1873)
"Asleep" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox is a brief but emotionally concentrated lyric poem that dramatizes the final moments of a dying young woman through her own voice, witnessed and mourned by her devoted sister. **Structure and Form** The poem is composed of three stanzas of eight lines each, employing a ballad-like rhythm with internal rhymes that give the verse a lulling, rocking quality — formally echoing the dying woman's drift into sleep and, ultimately, death. The alternating rhyme scheme and the recurring imagery of rest and weariness create a mournful yet gentle musicality suited to the subject. **Narrative** The poem is almost entirely delivered in the first person voice of a young woman who is dying. She speaks intimately to her sister, asking her to come closer because her sight is failing — "I can not see your face." Rather than expressing fear or anguish, she frames her dying as a welcome surrender to exhaustion. She is glad night is coming; she is "weary and want[s] to rest." She notices her sister weeping and gently questions the grief, framing her own death as nothing more than falling asleep against a loved one's breast. In the second stanza, the dying woman elaborates on her profound fatigue. A "jarring pain" in her "weary brain" beats at her relentlessly, and she expresses confidence — touching in its innocence — that sleep will make it vanish. She describes the physical comfort of lying against her sister's breast in "the warmth of your loving smile," finding peace in closeness and warmth even as her life recedes. The third stanza introduces the poem's central emotional complication. The dying woman speaks of a beautiful dream she had the previous night: in the dream, a man — clearly someone she loves, and whose faithfulness appears to have been in question — came to her with her sister and kissed her with devotion. He began to say something meaningful, something she longs to relay, but she is too tired. She defers: she will sleep first, and tell the rest of the dream afterward. She never does. The final two lines pivot from her direct speech to the narrator's observation: "But the sister wept, for the maiden slept / In the sleep of death, on her breast." The casual promise to speak later is retrospectively revealed as the last words she ever spoke. The dream — hopeful, tender, perhaps a fantasy of reconciliation with a man who was untrue — remains forever unfinished. The reader understands what the dying woman did not: she was not resting. She was dying. **Themes** The central theme is the thin boundary between sleep and death — a classical literary and cultural association that Wilcox uses with understated precision. The dying woman herself cannot distinguish between the two states; her exhaustion makes death feel like relief. This conflation is the poem's most affecting device. Her peace is real, and her ignorance of the finality of her rest is itself a kind of mercy. A secondary theme is unfulfilled love. The tantalizing fragment of the dream — a man who "was true," who came and kissed her — hints at a prior sorrow, perhaps betrayal or loss. The dream represents the love she desired but may not have had in waking life. That this is the last image she carries, and that she dies before she can speak it fully, underscores the pathos of a life cut short before its hopes were realized. The poem also meditates on the burden of the bereaved witness. The sister is present throughout, weeping, holding, listening — unable to stop what is happening. Her grief is quiet but absolute. She is the only one who understands what is being lost, while the dying woman herself remains serenely unaware. **Tone** The tone throughout the dying woman's speech is tender, trusting, and almost childlike in its acceptance. There is no tragedy in her voice — only fatigue and comfort. The tragedy belongs entirely to the sister, and to the reader, who reads the final two lines with the knowledge that the maiden's gentle confidences were her last. Wilcox achieves considerable emotional force through this tonal contrast: innocence and ignorance on one side, grief and full understanding on the other.
By Ella Wheeler Wilcox · First published 1873 · Genre: Poetry, Elegy, Narrative Poetry · 271 words
First lines
"Come closer," she said, "my sister, / For I can not see your face. / The day grows dim, and the shadows grim, / Are gathering on apace. / I am glad that the night is coming: / I am weary, and want to rest. / What! do you weep, that I fall asleep / Leaning upon your breast?
"Oh, Sister, I am _so_ tired: / How tired you can not know. / And a jarring pain, in my weary brain, / Beats like a cruel blow. / I think it will all have vanished, / After I sleep awhile. / How sweetly I rest, lying here on your breast. / In the warmth of your loving smile.
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Asleep is listed on Textopian as a poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, dated 1873 CE.
This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.
- Work type: Poem
- Author: Ella Wheeler Wilcox
- Date: 1873 CE
- Language: English
- Genres: Poetry, Elegy, Narrative Poetry, Romantic Poetry, Tragic Literature
- Length: 271 words
- Structure: 1 section, 3 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Very Easy (5th Grade or below)
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- Work identity for Asleep by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
- Canonical title URL and first readable passage URL
- Genre and topic classification from the Textopian catalog
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Genres
- Poetry — The work is composed in verse form with structured rhyme and meter, establishing it fundamentally as a poem rather than prose.
- Elegy — The poem functions as a lament, mourning death and loss with a solemn, mournful tone as the protagonist approaches the end of life.
- Narrative Poetry — The work tells a specific story with defined characters (sister and maiden), dialogue, plot progression, and a narrative climax revealing the protagonist's death.
- Romantic Poetry — The poem employs Victorian Romantic sensibility with emphasis on emotion, personal feeling, love references, and idealized imagery of intimacy and connection.
Tags
poetry · lyric poetry · American literature · nineteenth-century literature · romanticism · love · longing · dreams · sleep · death · grief · memory