Emily Bronte "When I Shall Sleep"

When I shall sleep

Oh, for the time when I shall sleep
Without identity,
And never care how rain may steep,
Or snow may cover me!
No promised heaven these wild desires
Could all, or half, fulful;
No threatened hell, with quenchless fires,
Subdue this quenchless will!

So said I, and still say the same;
Still, to my death, will say—
Three gods within this little frame
Are warring night and day:
Heaven could not hold them all, and yet
They all are held in me;
And must be mine till I forget
My present entity!

Oh, for the time when in my breast
Their struggles will be o'er!
Oh, for the day when I shall rest,
And never suffer more!

Can anyone help me for analysing this poem??Both on the thematic and structural levels (paradox,simile,metaphor,allegory etc..)

I've found some of them for example,some paradoxes:promised heaven,threatened hell;rest and suffer.Sleep symbolises death?what else?Who or what are the "three gods"?

Three gods may be the Holy Trinity in Christianity or maybe she and her 2 sisters Anne and Charlotte..

perhaps the body, mind, and soul

I dunno...but that sure is a sad, mournful tone for a poem! :(

Beautiful syntax, though!

A VISION OF ONENESS

Emily Bronte seemed to be obsessed with what she called her Gondal Poems which she began collecting together in February 1844. This obsession continued right through the publication of Wuthering Heights in 1847 until May 1848. Her poems were about imaginary heroes and heroines and contained a vision of oneness. It was this vision that she sought to communicate in her poetry. These poems and their themes provided a retreat for Emily’s imagination, for her fantasy. They became a necessity for her life. They were a “benignant power” a “solacer of human cares” and a “brighter hope when hope despairs.” -Ron Price with thanks to Juliet Barker, The Brontes, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1994, pp.435-6.

You started collecting your poems
the same month Samandar was born,
the great Apostle of Baha’u’llah,
one of the many heros and heroines
of the Cause. You finished just before
the Conference of Badasht with the Bab
in the fortress of Chihriq. And now my
imagination has a home among these
saints and martyrs that is a “benignant
poer”, a “sure solacer of human cares”
and a “brighter hope when hope despairs.”1

You died when the siege of the Shrine of
Shaykh Tabarsi began: aged thirty, as tough
as boot leather, an unbending spirit, proud
endurance, gifted soul, genius of liberated
mind and tranquil spirit: perhaps your spirit
was at Tabarsi!2

1 ibid., p. 436.
2 Emily Bronte had “a vision of the essential oneness of life which she gradually and haltingly communicated in her poetry.”(Winifred Gerin, Emily Bronte, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1997, p.149. She died on 19 December 1848 the same day as the siege on Tabarsi began.

Ron Price
26 October 1999