Best Night Poems

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
...

I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
...

As soon as Fred gets out of bed,
his underwear goes on his head.
His mother laughs, 'Don't put it there,
a head's no place for underwear! '
...

Good-night? ah! no; the hour is ill
Which severs those it should unite;
Let us remain together still,
Then it will be good night.
...

Oh I have sown my love so wide
That he will find it everywhere;
It will awake him in the night,
It will enfold him in the air.
...

My tea is nearly ready and the sun has left the sky.
It's time to take the window to see Leerie going by;
For every night at teatime and before you take your seat,
With lantern and with ladder he comes posting up the street.
...

Celebrate our anniversary - can't you see
tonight the snowy night of our first winter
comes back again in every road and tree -
that winter night of diamantine splendour.
...

Warm summer sun,
Shine kindly here,
Warm southern wind,
Blow softly here.
...

long walk at night
the breeze freezes my spirit
the moon warms it up
pulling at my poetic soul
...

The noon's greygolden meshes make
All night a veil,
The shorelamps in the sleeping lake
Laburnum tendrils trail.
...

I hear the halting footsteps of a lass
In Negro Harlem when the night lets fall
Its veil. I see the shapes of girls who pass
To bend and barter at desire's call.
...

Ancient night and the unruly salt
beat at the walls of my house.
The shadow is all one, the sky
throbs now along with the ocean,
...

Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;
Every leaf speaks bliss to me
Fluttering from the autumn tree.
...

Dark clouds run to cover sun's face,
With sparkling lights to join the race,
Descending on earth with malign intent,
Fear, destruction all with dreaded content,
...

Night-night moon
Night-night stars
Night-night noisy
trucks and cars.
...

DOES the road wind uphill all the way?
   Yes, to the very end.
Will the day's journey take the whole long day?
   From morn to night, my friend.
...

'Oh, dear with best thighs, heart-stealing is this environ with abundantly grown stacks of rice and their cobs, or with sugarcane, and it is reverberated with the screeches of ruddy gees that abide hither and thither... now heightened will be passion, thereby this season will be gladdening for lusty womenfolk, hence listen of this season, called Shishira, the Winter...

'At this time, people enjoy abiding in the medial places of their residences, whose ventilators are blockaded for the passage of chilly air, and at fireplaces, in sunrays, with heavy clothing, and along with mature women of age, for they too will be passionately steamy...
...

last night where the soul's sorrow was a mate,

last night where she found one start,
...

In the stillest hour of the night, as I lay half asleep, my seven selves sat together and thus conversed in whisper:
...

I was so sick last night I
Didn't hardly know my mind.
So sick last night I
Didn't know my mind.
...

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
...

Through the conduits of blood
my body in your body
spring of night
my tongue of sun in your forest
...

I am being accused of loving you, that is all
It is not an insult, but a praise, that is all

My heart is pleased at the words of the accusers
...

471

A Night—there lay the Days between—
The Day that was Before—
...

The April night is still and sweet
With flowers on every tree;
Peace comes to them on quiet feet,
But not to me.
...

How can I then return in happy plight
That am debarred the benefit of rest?
When day's oppression is not eased by night,
But day by night, and night by day oppressed?
...

Two travellers had travelled a long way,
They became weary and exhausted,
At night they took shelter in an inn,
They lay in the same bed
...

Apple-green west and an orange bar,
And the crystal eye of a lone, one star . . .
And, "Child, take the shears and cut what you will,
Frost to-night -- so clear and dead-still."
...

In the night of weariness
let me give myself up to sleep without struggle,
resting my trust upon thee.
...

Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,
The dear respose for limbs with travel tirèd;
But then begins a journey in my head
To work my mind, when body's work's expirèd.
...

...

I heard the trailing garments of the Night
Sweep through her marble halls!
I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light
From the celestial walls!
...

Shine on, O moon of summer.
Shine to the leaves of grass, catalpa and oak,
All silver under your rain to-night.
...

I dreamed as in my bed I lay,
All night's fathomless wisdom come,
That I had shorn my locks away
And laid them on Love's lettered tomb:
...

Many ways to say good night.

Fireworks at a pier on the Fourth of July
spell it with red wheels and yellow spokes.
...

Have pity, You alone whom I adore
From down this black pit where my heart is sped,
A sombre universe ringed round with lead
Where fear and curses the long night explore.
...

Part One


As night fell and the light glittered in the great house, the servants stood at the massive door awaiting the coming of the guests; and upon their velvet garments shown golden buttons.
...

Deep in the night the cry of a swallow,
Under the stars he flew,
Keen as pain was his call to follow
Over the world to you.
...

Night fell over North Lebanon and snow was covering the villages surrounded by the Kadeesha Valley, giving the fields and prairies the appearance of a great sheet of parchment upon which the furious Nature was recording her many deeds. Men came home from the streets while silence engulfed the night.

In a lone house near those villages lived a woman who sat by her fireside spinning wool, and at her side was her only child, staring now at the fire and then at his mother.
...

At that hour when all things have repose,
O lonely watcher of the skies,
Do you hear the night wind and the sighs
Of harps playing unto Love to unclose
...

After dancing on the nightly lips
Dreams melt in
The unrealized passion of the night
...

In the night I dreamed of you;
All the place was filled
With your presence; in my heart
The strife was stilled.
...

My candle burned alone in an immense valley.
Beams of the huge night converged upon it,
Until the wind blew.
The beams of the huge night
...

Your scent is in the room.
Swiftly it overwhelms and conquers me!
Jasmines, night jasmines, perfect of perfume,
Heavy with dew before the dawn of day!
...

OUT of the wood of thoughts that grows by night
To be cut down by the sharp ax of light,--
Out of the night, two cocks together crow,
Cleaving the darkness with a silver blow:
...

Upon the glow of evening mist
Beneath the darkened sky
Whilst gazing at the moonlight pale
I heard the night birds cry
...

Before all the wondrous shows of the widespread space around him, what living, sentient thing loves not the all-joyous light -- with its colors, its rays and undulations, its gentle omnipresence in the form of the wakening Day? The giant-world of the unresting constellations inhales it as the innermost soul of life, and floats dancing in its blue flood -- the sparkling, ever-tranquil stone, the thoughtful, imbibing plant, and the wild, burning multiform beast inhales it -- but more than all, the lordly stranger with the sense-filled eyes, the swaying walk, and the sweetly closed, melodious lips. Like a king over earthly nature, it rouses every force to countless transformations, binds and unbinds innumerable alliances, hangs its heavenly form around every earthly substance. -- Its presence alone reveals the marvelous splendor of the kingdoms of the world.

Aside I turn to the holy, unspeakable, mysterious Night. Afar lies the world -- sunk in a deep grave -- waste and lonely is its place. In the chords of the bosom blows a deep sadness. I am ready to sink away in drops of dew, and mingle with the ashes. -- The distances of memory, the wishes of youth, the dreams of childhood, the brief joys and vain hopes of a whole long life, arise in gray garments, like an evening vapor after the sunset. In other regions the light has pitched its joyous tents. What if it should never return to its children, who wait for it with the faith of innocence?
...

I imagine how it would be if I were up there with no air
All alone in the night
The stars makes it bright
And brings back my sight
...

One time more, my love, the net of light extinguishes
work, wheels, flames, boredoms and farewells,
and we surrender the swaying wheat to night,
the wheat that noon stole from earth and light.
...

The road is my wedded companion. She speaks to me under my feet all
day, she sings to my dreams all night.
My meeting with her had no beginning, it begins endlessly at
each daybreak, renewing its summer in fresh flowers and songs, and
...

The night soaks itself
along the shore of the river
and in Lolita's breasts
the branches die of love.
...

O Night comes again,
When the golden light leaving the sky
Follow the sun, to the west hills it flies
Flying birds now return, reach home again
...

II
Keep me fully glad with nothing. Only take my hand in your hand.
In the gloom of the deepening night take up my heart and
...

AN angel, robed in spotless white,
Bent down and kissed the sleeping Night.
Night woke to blush; the sprite was gone.
...

FIRST SPIRIT
O thou, who plum'd with strong desire
Wouldst float above the earth, beware!
A Shadow tracks thy flight of fire--
...

My bed is like a little boat;
Nurse helps me in when I embark;
She girds me in my sailor's coat
And starts me in the dark.
...

The cedar trees have sung their vesper hymn,
And now the music sleeps--
Its benediction falling where the dim
Dusk of the forest creeps.
...

WHEN I go alone at night to my love-tryst, birds do not sing, the wind does not stir, the houses on both sides of the street stand silent.
...

I should like to relate this memory ...
but it is so faded now ... scarecely anthing is left --
because it lies far off, in the years of my early manhood.
...

The town does not exist
except where one black-haired tree slips
up like a drowned woman into the hot sky.
...

The end of the affair is always death.
She's my workshop. Slippery eye,
out of the tribe of myself my breath
...

Oh night and sleep,
Ye are so soft and deep,
I am so weary, come ye soon to me.
Oh hours that creep,
...

...

Ah, It was heavenly rare night
For spending with you in my dream
In such a compassionate scheme
You let my heart with such delight
...

I speak out of the deep of night
out of the deep of darkness
and out of the deep of night I speak.
...

Then finish the last song and let us
leave.
Forget this night when the night is
no more.
...

Can love do wonders
into the night of stars
as a thought pounder's
into the very afar's.
...

She makes her way through the dark trees
Down to the lake to be alone.
Following their voices on the breeze,
She makes her way. Through the dark trees
...

WE are to play the game of death to-night, my bride and I.
The night is black, the clouds in the sky are capricious, and the waves are raving at sea.
...

LEAVES and rain and the days of the year,
(Water-willow and wellaway,)
All these fall, and my soul gives ear,
...

(Rainer Maria Rilke)

He went up under the gray leaves
All gray and lost in the olive lands
...

Grey dawn on the sand-hills -- the night wind has drifted
All night from the rollers a scent of the sea;
With the dawn the grey fog his battalions has lifted,
At the call of the morning they scatter and flee.
...

The light house, the guardian angel of the night
She shines her light for all the lost sailors passing by
Her beam bright as the sun, flashing through the night sky
...

The scent of vanilla
In my garden villa
On auspicious night
Call me to blight
...

We meet and part now over all the world;
we, the lost company,
take hands together in the night, forget
the night in our brief happiness, silently.
...

Twilight is majestic with a reddish-orange hue,
With all its heart it welcomes the night new;
Twilight is darker with dusk,
Night is but the dusk's husk;
...

The night sky shining with sparkling variation of blues,
A sensational work that captured the turbulent mind
Of Vincent, shining with dots of shimmering colours.
The blue sky, the twinkling stars, the serene river,
...

Late at night when most people are sleeping,
I lie awake..watching the shadows in my room move across the ceiling
As if they were children playing outside, letting the hours tick by
Continuously staring into space, in search of a place to rekindle my last,
...

Over the ocean of life’s commotion
We sail till the night comes on.
Sail and sail in a tiny boat,
Drifting wherever the billows go.
...

My lover died a century ago,
Her dear heart stricken by my sland'rous breath,
Wherefore the Gods forbade that I should know
The peace of death.
...

Cometh the night. The wind falls low,
The trees swing slowly to and fro:
Around the church the headstones grey
Cluster, like children strayed away
...

Oh! breathe not his name, let it sleep in the shade,
Where cold and unhonour'd his relics are laid:
Sad, silent, and dark, be the tears that we shed,
As the night-dew that falls on the grass o'er his head.
...

Every so often he vows to start a better life.
But when night comes with her own counsels,
with her compromises, and with her promises;
but when night comes with her own power
...

At night, everything take a rest.
The birds are silent in their nest.
Humans take a break after doing their best.
And the child sleeps next to his mother's breast.
...

Angels all around me.
Angels high above.
Pretty angels everywhere
guarding me with love.
...

The skin of light enveloping this world lacks depth and I can actually see the black night of all these
similar bodies beneath the trembling veil and light of myself it is this night that even the mask of the
sun cannot hide from me I am the seer of night the auditor of silence for silence too is dressed in
sonorous skin and each sense has its own night even as I do I am my own night I am the conceiver
...

Slipped into bed and began to review,
The year that had gone, with a distant view.
Sky, a shade of grey pearls, on full moon night.
On last day and hour of year, ah, so bright.
...

Beautiful is the moon, just before
The night of full moon. Specially if
One can watch it late at night or
Early morning in the western sky.
...

Green souls are seen in threads of night
Light!
Lights of souls here are glowing to write,
Cite!
...

In the silence of the night
I will come to you
In the silence of the night
I will lie with you
...

Every night Thou freest our spirits from the body
And its snare, making them pure as rased tablets.
...

The host, he says that all is well
And the fire-wood glow is bright;
The food has a warm and tempting smell,-
But on the window licks the night.
...

A single smile disputes
Each star with the gathering night
A single smile for us both
...

My lamp is out, my task is done,
And up the stair with lingering feet
I climb. The staircase clock strikes one.
Good night, my love! good night, my sweet!
...

Last night she walked into my world,
her touch so soft, so sure,
last night she reached across the mile,
and whispered such sweet a word,
...

Enraptured by the mystic starry sky
Vincent so desperately wanted to try,
To paint this enchanting twilight scene,
But how, Colours in that light couldn’t be seen.
...

Ah, love, my love is like a cry in the night,
A long, loud cry to the empty sky,
The cry of a man alone in the desert,
...

The moon's a little prairie-dog.
He shivers through the night.
He sits upon his hill and cries
For fear that I will bite.
...

I woke up one night because
I heard you call...
I answered the night
but the night was still
...

(Suggested by the lives of Napoleon and Josephine.)

I.
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