To Night Lyrics
Swiftly walk o'er the western wave,
Spirit of the 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!
II
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!
III
When I arose and saw the dawn,
I sighed for thee;
When 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!
V
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, belovèd Night—
Swift be thine approaching flight,
Come soon, soon!
About
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), one of the ‘Big Six’ Romantic poets, the others being Coleridge, Blake, Wordsworth, Byron and Keats.
Romantic Poetry
A tenet of Romantic poetry is its focus on nature and man’s insignificance in comparison to the natural world. This was a subject of particular interest to the poet Wordsworth. Shelley, however, was concerned with regeneration of his spiritual and poetic self, and regeneration of Europe politically. It was a turbulent time when the Napoleonic Wars had not long ended and Europe was in a state of flux and unrest. In England the infamous Peterloo Massacre had occurred in August 1819, when cavalry charged into a crowd demonstrating against poor economic conditions and lack of parliamentary representation in the north of England.
The Power of Nature — Shelley was a Pantheist and believed that Nature or a divine spirit of beauty, runs through everything in the universe. This force can be the root of human joy and goodness and can influence people to change the world for the better, though he is also aware of its indiscriminately destructive side.
Structure
The poem comprises five stanzas of seven lines each, with a complex rhyme scheme; five lines with an ABABCCB pattern,
Lines are of uneven length, with the second and seventh lines shorter. This creates a complex and compelling rhythm. The short lines provide emphasis.
Language
Shelley’s most notable characteristic is his use of abstract words like ‘Death, 'Noon’, ‘Day’. Also his description of the cosmos, as in the day and the ‘noon’ which lay ‘heavy on flower and tree’. This gives his poetry an ethereal, other-worldly quality in which the spiritual significance behind the ideas is more important than the words themselves.
Q&A
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