To Sleep, by John Keats

O soft embalmer of the still midnight,
Shutting, with careful fingers and benign,
Our gloom-pleas'd eyes, embower'd from the light,
Enshaded in forgetfulness divine:
O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close
In midst of this thine hymn my willing eyes,
Or wait the "Amen," ere thy poppy throws
Around my bed its lulling charities.
Then save me, or the passed day will shine
Upon my pillow, breeding many woes,—
Save me from curious Conscience, that still lords
Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole;
Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards,
And seal the hushed Casket of my Soul.

To Sleep
Written in 1819 by John Keats

I reflected a long while on how to interpret this poem and what images to draw on. It was simple enough to make it about sleep and night. But that seemed too conventional and convenient, and moreover I was quite curious about Keats' references to "soft embalmer," "oiled wards," and "hushed Casket of my Soul." Was he alluding to death? Perhaps. As a poet, I myself have likened sleep to death and death to sleep.

A few more weeks passed, before I came upon "Romeo and Juliet" as the theme. Shakespeare was, of course, a master at metaphor, and words like "turn" and "die" had sexual connotations. So why not, then, a romantic tragedy, as an interpretation of Keats' poem? "Sleep" becomes a metaphor for Juliet, and specifically Romeo's untrammeled love and desire for her. Its meaning becomes "sleep with" and "go to bed with," and, later on, as the play turns to its tragic denouement, it becomes "kill oneself" and "die." So "Casket of my Soul," as I interpret it, is both figurative and literal.

I have always loved Franco Zeffirelli's 1968 adaptation of "Romeo and Juliet," so I drew images from this film. The young actors are Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey.