Our cries and laments kept the neighbors awake all night, but how are we to awaken our sleeping destiny?

There is a touching and bitter irony in this couplet: the poet's midnight cries of pain are piercing enough to keep the whole neighborhood awake, yet entirely powerless against his own destiny. The metaphor of 'sleeping fate' captures a profound human helplessness—reminding us that while our grief can easily disturb the world around us, it often fails to stir the deaf, unmoving hand of fortune.