What time bright Phoebus doth not stretch and bend his shining arms around this terrene sphere, the people call that season dark and drear night, for the cause they do not comprehend. So weak is Night that if our hand extend a glimmering torch, her shadows disappear, leaving her dead; like frailest gossamere, tinder and steel her mantle rive and rend. Nay, if this Night be anything at all, sure she is daughter of the sun and earth; this holds, the other spreads that shadowy pall. Howbeit they err who praise this gloomy birth, so frail and desolate and void of mirth that one poor firefly can her might appal. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TO-MORROW TO FRESH WOODS AND PASTURES NEW' by AMY LOWELL FACADE: 2. THE BAT by EDITH SITWELL GOOD LUCK by JOHANNA AMBROSIUS THE JUDGMENT by KATHARINE LEE BATES A JAPANESE EVENING by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN CRAIGIEBURN WOOD by ROBERT BURNS OLD AND NEW; THE CENTURY ASSOCIATION, 1847-1897 by WILLIAM ALLEN BUTLER |