# XXII: Of That So Sweet Imprisonment explained — Poetry

> Chapter companion for Poetry by James Joyce.

## What happens

The speaker expresses a longing for a sweet imprisonment in the beloved's arms, where love makes the bonds tremulous and the night allures without alarms, culminating in a union where soul lies prisoned with soul.

## Themes in this chapter

### Love and Longing

The poem centers on the desire for a sweet imprisonment in the beloved's embrace, highlighting the longing for union.

### Mortality and Sleep

The imagery of sleep giving way to dreamier sleep suggests a merging of souls that borders on the eternal or deathlike.

## Character check-ins

### Narrator

The speaker who yearns for imprisonment in the beloved's arms.

### Beloved

The one whose soft arms woo the narrator to relent and detain.

### Love

The force that makes the interwoven arms tremulous.

## Key lines

> Of that so sweet imprisonment My soul, dearest, is fain

My soul desires that delightful captivity, my dearest.

_The speaker expresses a willing surrender to the beloved's embrace._

> But sleep to dreamier sleep be wed Where soul with soul lies prisoned.

May sleep be joined to an even deeper sleep, where soul is imprisoned with soul.

_The union of souls is described as a profound, dreamlike state._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_11_se/chapters/xxii-of-that-so-sweet-imprisonment
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_11_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_11_se/chapters