The painting depicts the discovery of the sleeping soldiers by a Knight. In their slumber they have become completed entwined by the barbed thorns of the Briar rose. Running beneath each of the major panels is an inscription of a poem by William Morris, under The Briar Wood the inscription reads: "The fateful slumber floats and flows About the tangle of the rose. But lo the fated hand and heart To rend the slumberous curse apart."