DARK is the night; and through its haunted shadows We blindly grope and stumble -- sometimes fall; No star is near enough to light the darkness, And priest-lit tapers cast no light at all, Save such a feeble and delusive glimmer As night-lamps cast upon a sick-room wall. Yet, each a torch we bear -- lit or unlighted; Burning for self it is a marsh-light's gleam, Kindled for others 'tis the child of sunlight, And darkness shrinks through twilight at its beam. Were each torch duly lit, O world long darkened, How would you bear the sudden light supreme? Vague dreams and vain! See, thou who idly dreamest Of what would be if every torch were lit, See where thine own smoulders a wasted ember, Thy torch -- for noblest uses framed and fit. Light thine own torch -- and hold it to thy brother, And his shall kindle at the flame of it. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE HOUSE OF LIFE: 50. WILLOWWOOD (2) by DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI BALLAD OF THE WOMEN OF PARIS by FRANCOIS VILLON SONNET WRITTEN IN THE FALL OF 1914: 4 by GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY LONG DELAYED by WILLIAM ALLINGHAM THE GODODDIN: THE DEATH OF HOEL by ANEIRIN GREATER LOVE by ANTIPATER OF SIDON DIRGE by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES VERSES IN A WATCH by WILLIAM CZAR BRADLEY THE RING AND THE BOOK: BOOK 12. THE BOOK AND THE RING by ROBERT BROWNING |