Wordsworth's "A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal" is a short, powerful poem focusing on the loss of someone close to the speaker. The poem is composed of two four-line stanzas, both of which follow a simple ABAB rhyme scheme and are based on the abstract, nameless concept of death. The poem refers, as the title suggests, to a sleep that had a profound effect on the speaker, and to a girl who the reader can assume is dead. The poem, although shrouded in ambiguity, has a unique emotional dimension, which Wordsworth achieves through stylistic choices such as the simplicity of language, juxtaposed images, and, ironically, the absence of identifying details. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay “A Sleep Made My Spiritual Seal” is told from the first person point of view, although the speaker is not the main focus of the poem; rather, it focuses primarily on a girl whom the speaker has chosen to leave anonymous. Of the poem's eight lines, only the first two refer to the speaker himself, and the rest of the poem focuses entirely on the young girl – referred to by the speaker as "she" – who remains unidentified for the duration of the poem. poem. This is perhaps the most distinctive feature of the poem: it is shrouded in ambiguity. Both the speaker and the "she" referred to in much of the poem show no signs of identification, and the reader is given very little concrete information about either character. The reader only knows that the speaker has experienced some kind of sleep – presumably symbolic, although this is also vague and unspecified – and that "she" to whom the speaker refers is dead, which only becomes clear 'at the second moment of the poem. and final stanza. The second stanza of the poem makes it relatively clear that the speaker is talking about death and that the “she” he is referring to is dead. Although not explicitly stated in the text—the speaker never directly refers to "death" or "dying"—the speaker's remarks that she has "no movement... no force » (line 5) strongly allude to this. as well as by her final statement that she is now “rolled… / With rocks, stones, and trees” (lines 7-8). However, this is the extent of the information the speaker offers about the girl; the rest is left for the reader to infer and interpret. The speaker does not reveal how or when she died, whether she was young or not, or what his relationship with her was - all things which, it seems, are fundamental to the reader's ability to achieve some semblance of understanding of the poem. in its entirety. However, while it may seem counterintuitive to write so vaguely about the main topics of the poem, this stylistic choice helps to pique the reader's interest in the speaker's words. Beyond the obvious fact that the lack of detail requires the reader to actively think and infer the poem's meaning, the ambiguity surrounding the poem's main characters allows the reader to connect more deeply to its main subject: death. The result of the speaker's lack of specificity is that the reader is struck less by the character of the speaker or the girl, but by the concept of death as a whole, leaving the reader with a vast capacity to interpret the poem as they see fit. wishes. and apply its abstract concepts to their own experiences of death and loss. This effect is aided by the fact that Wordsworth's poem is short and relatively simple, both in its structure,.