tonigh" BY:Percy Bysshe Shelley

To Night


by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

Swiftly walk o’er the western wave,
Spirit of Night!
Out of the misty eastern cave,
Where, all the long and lone daylight,
Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear,
Which make thee terrible and dear-
Swift be thy flight!

Wrap thy form in a mantle gray,
Star-inwrought!
Blind with thine hair the eyes of day;
Kiss her until she be wearied out,
Then wander o’er city, and sea, and land,
Touching all with thine opiate wand-
Come, long-sought!

When I arose and saw the dawn,
I sighed for thee;
When the light rode high, and the dew was gone,
And noon lay heavy on flower and tree,
And the weary day turned to his rest,
Lingering like an unloved guest,
I sighed for thee.

Thy brother Death came, and cried,
Wouldst thou me?
Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed,
Murmured like a noontide bee,
Shall I nestle near thy side?
Wouldst thou me?- And I replied,
No not thee!

Death will come when thou art dead,
Soon, too soon-
Sleep will come when thou art fled;
Of neither would I ask the boon
I ask of thee, beloved Night-
Swift be thine approaching flight,
Come soon, soon!


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PLEASE : I need critical analysis of this poem ?????????

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thank you my dear

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Good poem, Naser. I'm curious when it was written. It's difficult to guess a date because the topics here are usual ones for Shelley: night, sleep, death. Most of the Romantic poets had a favorite trope for the lyric condition: Wordsworth used the countryside, Keats wrote about mythology, and Shelley lyricized oblivion. For Shelley, night and death stood for particular ways of experiencing a certain sublime idiocy where time is suspended, context is lost, and one can just let their mind work. I'm guessing that death means a complete losing oneself to this condition, while night and sleep represents a partial and short-lived immersion in this state. Shelley wrote several poems like this one across his career, though, so I'm not sure what year to say this came from.

Anyway, I like the poem--particularly, the first two stanzas.

thank you Quark

good comment