Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

IN THE DARK by WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS

First Line: HOW OFTEN, WHEN I WAKE FROM SLEEP AT NIGHT
Last Line: OVER IT, AND GULFED ME IN ITS DEEPS BELOW.
Subject(s): ILL-TEMPERED; NIGHT; BEDTIME;
How often, when I wake from sleep at night,
I search my consciousness to find the ill
That has lurked formlessly within it, still
Haunting me with a shadowy affright;
And try to seize it and to know aright
Its vague proportions, and my frantic will
Runs this way and runs that way, with a thrill
Of horror, to all things that ban or blight!
Then, when I find all well, it is as though
The moment were some reef where I had crept
From the wide waste of danger and of death,
And for a little I might draw my breath
Before the flood came up again, and swept
Over it, and gulfed me in its deeps below.



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