Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

IN THE NIGHT by JOHN GOULD FLETCHER

First Line: IN THE NIGHT, THE BEAUTIFUL, BITTER NIGHT
Last Line: NEVER TO SPROUT IN THE WILDERNESS OF EARTH.
Subject(s): NIGHT; BEDTIME;
IN the night, the beautiful, bitter night,
I contemplate my perfect loneliness and failure:
I, cast out by the loose rhythm of life,
Desire the inexpressible, long for what I cannot be.
Oh, the sad, slow rains and the heavy winds and the darkness
Of winter, and the dull streets of despair!
Of life I am so weary and sick at heart
I could fight, were aught to be won, or sleep, if sleep were not dead.
Now the lamps are put out, the babel of day returns;
I live on, yet a million others die;
Weakly I strive, but none knows aught of it,
To the crowd I am as one of the never-born.
Better to make an end, best not to be,
Than to know myself a seed that was flung by the wind
Never to sprout in the wilderness of earth.



Home: PoetryExplorer.net