To Night

To Night

So thou art come again, old black-winged night,
Like an huge bird, between us and the sun,
Hiding, with out-stretched form, the genial light;
And still, beneath thine icy bosom's dun
And cloudy plumage, hatching fog-breathed blight
And embryo storms, and crabbéd frosts, that shun
Day's warm caress. The owls from ivied loop
Are shrieking homage, as thou cowerest high;
Like sable crow pausing in eager stoop
On the dim world thou gluttest thy clouded eye,
Silently waiting latest time's fell whoop,
When thou shalt quit thine eyrie in the sky,
To pounce upon the world with eager claw,
And tomb time, death, and substance in thy maw.


Thomas Lovell Beddoes
from The Penguin Book of the Sonnet, ed. Phillis Levin

As an example of taking a simile to its limits, this is wonderful.

That weary "so thou art come again...." , as if Night is an annoying kill-joy who keeps ruining the party soon becomes much more ominous - an evil bird-spirit hatching blight, storms and frost, a predator, waiting silently to destroy.

And the words! The words!

 

Genial - dun - plumage - blight - embryo - crabbed - shun - caress - homage - sable - stoop - gluttest - fell - whoop - eyrie - pounce - maw

 

 

The poem may be in strict sonnet form, but the words are wild!

 

 

Nocturne

Alphonse Mucha

Nocturne

Now through night's caressing grip

Earth and all her oceans slip,

Capes of China slide away

From her fingers into day

And th'Americas incline

Coasts towards her shadow line.

Now the ragged vagrants creep

Into crooked holes to sleep:

Just and unjust, worst and best,

Change their places as they rest:

Awkward lovers like in fields

Where disdainful beauty yields:

While the splendid and the proud

Naked stand before the crowd

And the losing gambler gains

And the beggar entertains:

May sleep's healing power extend

Through these hours to our friend.

Unpursued by hostile force,

Traction engine, bull or horse

Or revolting succubus;

Calmly till the morning break

Let him lie, then gently wake.

 

W. H. Auden

That sensation of the turning earth - my favourite part of this poem, distinctly felt although never directly mentioned. 

 

Chorus

Chia-Chi Yu

Chorus

That rain-strewn night in the woods, the chorus, chorus

Of the green tree frogs called us

And let us by flashlight far from our firelight

Over and down a logging road to the marsh,

And they kept singing as green as the half-frozen

Hemlock branches we brushed slowly among,

As high and thin as the air we tried to hold

As breath among mountains, as thin

And clear as the ice our boots were breaking

Gently, each step a pale-green croaking

Of its own, as we came nearer and nearer where

They had risen out of cold graves to the cold

At the brittle edge of winter broken toward spring

To make their music over a cold spawning,

To choir all night after night, telling each other

We lived at the edge of summer, we live

Here again and again. As we came closer,

The singing ended, suddenly went silent

At a single pulsing throatbeat. Nothing but wind

And sleet made any sound over the marsh.

We turned our light away. We waited longer

And longer in darkness, shivering like the reeds

Beyond us, chilled as the film of ice at our feet,

Forgetting all words, and the first voice began

Again, far off, and slowly the green others

Nearby began their hesitant answers, their answers

Louder and clearer chorused around us

As if we belonged there, as if we belonged to them.

David Wagoner

 

 

 Growing up, spring evenings were full of frog noise from the pond. 

I wish I could hear it now.

 

 

Evening

Clifford Webb

Evening

From upland slopes I see the cows file by,

Lowing, great-chested, down the homeward trail,

By dusking fields and meadows shining pale

With moon-tipped dandelions. Flickering high,

A peevish night-hawk in the western sky

Beats up into the lucent solitudes,

Or drops with gliding wing. The stilly woods

Grow dark and deep, and gloom mysteriously.

Cool night winds creep, and whisper in mine ear.

The homely cricket gossips at my feet.

From far-off pools and wastes of reeds I hear,

Clear and soft-piped, the chanting frogs break sweet

In full Pandean chorus. One by one

Shine out the stars, and the great night comes on.

Archibald Lampman

“Meadows shining pale with moon-tipped dandelions.”

“The stilly woods grow dark and deep…”

 I have an image of a box being passed to me with this poem inside it, a gift I can enjoy over and over again. I put it in my pocket and carry it with me wherever I go, wherever life takes me. I don’t know Lampman, and he doesn’t know me, but we share this place, this moment - and it’s beautiful.