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...DOROTHY Q; A FAMILY PORTRAIT by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES METAMORPHOSES: 11. INVOCATION OF ISIS by LUCIUS APULEIUS IMITATIONS OF SHAKESPEARE by JOHN ARMSTRONG THE INGOLDSBY PENANCE!; A LEGEND OF PALESTINE AND -- WEST KENT by RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM |