Darkness (Symbol)
The speaker of the poem refers to the "Erebus" that he tries to hold his beloved, Eurydice, in after her death. The term refers to a Greek concept of darkness. In the poem, it symbolizes both the underworld and the state between waking and dreaming that he loses her in each morning. The vagueness of this symbol highlights how little he understands about her disappearance. This image shows that he didn't just lose her once, in the moment he turned; he also loses her each time he leaves the world of dreams.
Sleep (Motif)
The speaker makes use of the motif of sleep to show that it is the only place where he can be with Eurydice again. When he is asleep, he can reside in the world of dreams, temporarily erasing the loss he endured in his real life. Sleep functions in the poem as a state of suspension, allowing him to revisit the person who he was unable to save from death. Trethewey chooses to include this motif to show how Orpheus's dreams of Eurydice leave him trapped in an endless loop, grasping at the memory of her as he watches her vanish over and over at the start of each day.
