Directions:  Read the following soliloquy from Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part II carefully.  Then, write a well organized essay that analyzes how the diction, imagery, and syntax help to convey his state of mind--his frustration with his inability to sleep.

        How many thousands of my poorest subjects
        Are at this hour asleep!  O sleep!  O gentle sleep!
        Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
line   That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down,
(5)    And steep my senses in forgetfulness?
        Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs*,
        Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,
        And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,
        Than in the perfum'd chambers of the great,
(10)   Under the canopies of costly state,
        And lull'd with sound of sweetest melody?
        O thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile
        In loathsome beds, and leav'st the kingly couch
        A watch-case or a commom 'larum-bell?
(15)   Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
        Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains
        In cradle of the rude imperious surge,
        And in the visitation of the winds,
        Who take the ruffian billows by the top,
(20)   Curling their monstrous heads and hanging them
        With deaf'ning clamour in the slippery clouds
        That with the hurl death itself awakes?
        Canst thou, O partial** sleep, give thy repose
        To the wet sea-boy in a hour so rude,
        And in the calmest and most stillest night,
        With all appliances and means to boot,
        Deny it to a King?  Then, happy low, lie down!
        Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.

        *huts
        **not impartial