A critical factor in one's interpretation of this poem is whether the repeated words "to sleep" are read as an infinitive or prepositional phrase.
The reader is advised to "take the lively air" in this poem, as "Great Nature has another thing to do/To you and me." The speaker exclaims, "God bless the ground! I shall walk softly there," and he "hear[s] his being dance from ear to ear." A critical factor in one's interpretation of this poem is whether the repeated words "to sleep" are read as an infinitive or prepositional phrase. The poet breaks the rules of the villanelle form in the odd numbered stanzas by not exactly repeating the last line of the first stanza, "I learn by going where I have to go." What is this poem that titles a 1953 collection by its author, Theodore Roethke, for 10 points, in which the speaker "wake[s] to sleep" and takes the title action slow?
The reader is advised to "take the lively air" in this poem, as "Great Nature has another thing to do/
“The {Waking}”