Poem Analysis: Winter Sleep

Thomas' Winter Sleep is a compelling poem exploring the awakening and rebirth of sleep during winter. What immediately draws my attention in the poem is the use of repetition in each stanza. The first two lines of each stanza contain "I know it must be" which indicates a high degree of certainty. It made me wonder whether the speaker does so in order to reassure herself or maybe just for the sake of emphasis for the poem's message.  The poem is divided into four different stanzas discussing sleep, age, fatigue, and death. All of these four ideas are certainly interconnected and organized together in a way where one idea leads to the other.

The central purpose of the poem was to explain the process of the winter sleep leading to the ultimate desire of destruction in order for rebirth to take place. The spring-like nature references of the running stream, flowers, grass transitioning to autumn fields, rain and falling sheaves. After the first two stanzas, the poem reaches the period of destruction with storms and leading to a frosty year which could be interpreted as death. The use of fluctuating seasonal weather is used as a vehicle to outline the transition from sleep to death. The speaker's feeling of herself growing old and tired are the catalysts for her desire of destruction--through the winter sleep.

The poem could also be interpreted as a process of hibernation; the speaker is isolated in her winter sleep and goes through different stages leading to the end of the sleep (where "death draws near"). However, the line "I know I must be dying, for I crave Life--life, strong life" indicates that her intention of destruction is to experience an awakening and an ultimate rebirth.

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