Speaker or Narrator, and Point of View
An unnamed lyric speaker, possibly standing in for Wilbur
Form and Meter
largely free verse
Metaphors and Similes
simile: "moving and staying like white water"
Alliteration and Assonance
alliteration: "air is all awash with angels"
Irony
n/a
Genre
lyric poem
Setting
a quiet bedroom, near a window, near dawn
Tone
serene, untroubled, celebratory, contemplative
Protagonist and Antagonist
n/a
Major Conflict
n/a
Climax
n/a
Foreshadowing
n/a
Understatement
n/a
Allusions
n/a
Metonymy and Synecdoche
synecdoche: "The eyes" in line 1 stand in for the sleeping figure and, later, for the soul that will rise from it.
Personification
anthropomorphism: the soul, throughout the poem, is made to seem like a perceiving body, even though it does not have a bodily form.
Hyperbole
n/a
Onomatopoeia
the "punctual rape" in the second-to-last stanza mimics, with its sound, the puncturing of the dream taking place
