from The Bijou Literary Annual, 1828
author: By the Rev. Joseph Blanco White
source date: 1828
edition published: 20170606
availability: Freely available via a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

The Bijou;
or Annual of Literature and the Arts

compiled by William Fraser
William Pickering London
1828
p. 16

Night and Death

By the Rev. Joseph Blanco White

Dedicated to S.T. Coleridge, Esq. By his sincere friend, Joseph Blanco White.

MYSTERIOUS night, when the first man but knew
Thee by report, unseen, and heard they name,
Did he not tremble for this lovely frame,
This glorious canopy of light and blue?

Yet 'neath a curtain of translucent dew
Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame,
Hesperus, with the host of heaven, came,
And lo! creation widened on his view!

Who could have thought what darkness lay concealed
Within thy beams, oh Sun? Or who could find,

Whil'st fly, and leaf, and insect stood revealed,
That to such endless orbs thou mad'st us blind?
Weak man! Why to shun death, this anxious strife?
If light can thus deceive, wherefore not life?