Fly not yet; 't is just the hour When pleasure, like the midnight flower That scorns the eye of vulgar light, Begins to bloom for sons of night And maids who love the moon.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that true beauty and pleasure often reveal themselves in the darkness and mystery of night, away from the harshness of day.
In this quote, Charles Lamb uses the imagery of a midnight flower to convey that there are moments and experiences that flourish in the cover of night, away from the mundane and ordinary. He highlights that there is a unique beauty in things that are often overlooked by the masses, and that those who appreciate the night and its offerings are rewarded with a deeper understanding of pleasure and beauty.
In practice
This quote can be shared during a poetry reading to emphasize the beauty found in nocturnal experiences.
Thus, when the lamp that lighted The traveller at first goes out, He feels awhile benighted, And looks around in fear and doubt. But soon, the prospect clearing, By cloudless starlight on he treads, And thinks no lamp so cheering As that light which Heaven sheds.
As down in the sunless retreats of the ocean Sweet flowers are springing no mortal can see, So deep in my soul the still prayer of devotion, Unheard by the world, rises silent to Thee. As still to the star of its worship, though clouded, The needle points faithfully o'er the dim sea, So dark when I roam in this wintry world shrouded, The hope of my spirit turns trembling to Thee.
The most mortifying infirmity in human nature, to feel in ourselves, or to contemplate in another, is perhaps cowardice.
Oh, ever thus, from childhood's hour, I 've seen my fondest hopes decay; I never loved a tree or flower But 't was the first to fade away. I never nurs'd a dear gazelle, To glad me with its soft black eye, But when it came to know me well And love me, it was sure to die.
May my last breath be drawn through a pipe, and exhaled in a jest.
A pun is not bound by the laws which limit nicer wit. It is a pistol let off at the ear; not a feather to tickle the intellect.
April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain.
In this particular tub, two knees jut up like icebergs, while minute brown hairs rise on arms and legs in a fringe of kelp; green soap navigates the tidal slosh of seas breaking on legendary beaches; in faith we shall board our imagined ship and wildly sail among sacred islands of the mad till death shatters the fabulous stars and makes us real.
My tears are like the quiet drift of petals from some magic rose; and all my grief flows from the rift of unremembered skies and snows. I think that if I touched the earth, it would crumble; it is so sad and beautiful, so tremulously like a dream.
So in the dark we hide the heart that bleeds, And wait, and tend our agonizing seeds.
The sky leans on me, me, the one upright among all horizontals.
Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky
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