Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.
Lines 17-20
In one of those sweet dreams I slept,
Kind Nature's gentlest boon!
And all the while my eyes I kept
On the descending moon.
- Don't look now, but it looks like the speaker's fallen asleep—just when things were getting good, too.
- That's one way to read line 17, anyway. Another way to see it is as a metaphor for being in love. Doesn't that feel like being in a "sweet dream"? Here the speaker says that this feeling is one of nature's greatest gifts ("gentlest boon") (18).
- Even as he experiences this dreamy happiness, the speaker keeps his eye on the prize.
- Actually, check that—he keeps it on the moon, which is still sinking in the sky.