Can anybody help me with this Emily Dickinson poem "Sleep is supposed to be"?

I have to teach the class about this poem in a few days, and I can't figure out what it means, I would appreciate any help. Thank You!











Sleep is supposed to be,


By souls of sanity,


The shutting of the eye.





Sleep is the station grand


Down which on either hand


The hosts of witness stand!





Morn is supposed to be,


By people of degree,


The breaking of the day.





Morning has not occurred!


That shall aurora be


East of eternity;





One with the banner gay,


One in the red array, --


That is the break of day.|||Emily is not the easiest poet to figure and I've not studied her academically, just read her quite a bit.





But I'll share my gleanings and maybe they'll spark some thoughts of your own.





I think this poem, like so many of hers, is concerned with death.





She grew up churched and was fascinated by many of the ideas of Christianity, although she rejected quite a few of the teachings. Nevertheless the themes of death and resurrection seem to have fascinated her.





For the Christian death is called sleep. But in everyday use sleep is just that time of 'shutting the eye' and letting the mind go wander for a while. And I think it is this second natural kind of sleep she alludes to in the first stanza. She is, nevertheless, setting us up for a further exploration of sleep, and I don't think she is eliminating by any means the allusion to the sleep which waits for the resurrection, even in the first verse. It is just that she is so incredibly subtle about it.





In the second stanza I believe she is referring to the sleep of death and the host of witnesses is probably taken from Hebrews 11.





The third stanza goes back to ordinary life--morning is when the day breaks. But again, there is the subtle movement which prepares us for the Morning of eternity which she comes out with in the fourth stanza. That aurora shall be east of eternity.





No more daily life sleeping and waking cycle, but the final morning hen Christ returns (although what place she gives him is debatable--what is not, is that her terms of thought are taken largely from the Bible in this).





And the last stanza adds to the fourth and confirms the break of the day when there is no more night, no more death, no more mourning, for all is morning, light, aurora.





She is a poet who has to be felt, and I think this is a very difficult poem for introducing people to her. There are more accessible poems. And this one becomes more accessible when one has more of her poems which show her deep interest and fascination with death and with resurrection.





Where she gets her banners and red array from I'm not sure, and not sure how important it is to pars them. They give us a picture of flags waving and gay red costumes, combined with a light and break of a day that will never end--a day which removes death from the realm of human experience forever.





The great thing about Emily Dickinson to me is the incredible intensity and lucidity of her mind and thought. It's not necessarily always attractive--it can be morbid--but at her best she strikes the soul as speaking of that which is true--there is an integrity in her writings that can't be missed. If you get


her. But I also think there is an intuitive element that one either gets or doesn't get and no amount of analyzing can make her come to life for people.





So if I were teaching it, I would show the connections between ordinary life -sleep and waking- and the sleep of death and rising to eternity, but I wouldn't try to parse it too deeply.





You might find some other poems where she talks about her view of death and of resurrection and eternity (short ones) to


kind of prepare the students for this poem. And talk about that.





I don't personally find this poem to be one that moves me greatly, where there are some of her poems where I feel she is speaking for me--what I had not been able to put into words. and she did it perfectly.





Good luck.|||well in the first stanza, she is saying that "souls of sanity," or "non-crazy people" consider sleep to be when you close your eyes.





in the third stanza, she is saying that "people of degree" (again, meaning non-crazy people) think of morning as just when the sun rises (day breaks)...





not sure what stanza 2 means. basically she can't sleep.





stanza 4 is saying that, for her, the writer (who is NOT "a soul of sanity" or a "person of degree") morning has not happened at all. she is saying that the light (aurora) is east of forever (eternity)... and if you think about the sun rising in the east, then what she is saying is that, to her, the sun will never rise.





not sure about stanza 5. no clue.





so if she is saying she is not sane, and her sun has not risen and will never rise, do you think she is saying she's happy? sad? angry? think of what light can be a metaphor for.





the writer is saying that she can't sleep and that as far as she is concerned, the sun will never rise, her world is dark.





here are some other comments for you to look over: http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/emily鈥?/a>|||Emily is known for her worsip of death. this poem is speaking of what it means to die. Line one says that normal sleep one closes their eyes, that is what people do in other words everyone dies sooner or later. Line four is talking on how good it is to be dead. The witnesses are the pallbeares. Line seven says that normal people get up early to do their daily things but line ten says that "oh no" she can't wake up and the light she sees is not the sun. The light she sees is the one that leads to eternity (heaven or hell). The last stanza simply says that the end is just the beggining.|||Agree with the first answer. I would say the 2nd stanza refers the sleeping eye. "Hosts of witness" probably means a person's two eyes (you witness things with your eyes). So a place where sleeping eyes 'gather' is at the grand station of sleep, figuratively.





I'm stuck on the last stanza as well. I would say she's referring to each of the eyes. "One with the banner gay" is one eye, "one in the red array" is the other eye? And that refers to when the sleepless/non-sane person wakes up ("that is the break of day"). If you think of the whole thing in terms of death, though, as the other answerer says, the banner gay could be heaven and the red array could be hell. but i think that would be too easy for Dickenson.