sleep is a great refreshment but will not do anything for the sea
which is no ship I might obtain something from
empty and with much more than I know
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 28 July 1663.
The speaker is awake in the dark, and the poem starts with a small, almost polite admission: sleep is wonderful, but it has limits. It can restore a tired body, yet it can't touch "the sea." Here the sea seems to stand for something huge and restless in the speaker's mind, whatever it is that keeps…
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