Come Sleep! Oh Sleep Violence Quotes

You can't have peace unless you have a conflict right? We'll get that conflict later the poem. For now, just note that the word "peace" foreshadows the war imagery that will be important a little later on.

The repetition of "shield" in these lines (as a noun and a verb) emphasizes the scope of the violence. The word "fierce" does the same thing. It's not like Despair is tossing little Styrofoam Nerf darts. These are fierce—sharp, dangerous, painful.

Wars are never civil, and they're always violent. This stuff about "civil wars" seems a little dramatic, but then again emotional conflicts can be pretty brutal, or "fierce," to borrow the poem's own word.