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.
The unpurged images of day recede; The Emperor's drunken soldiery are abed; Night resonance recedes, night-walkers' song After great cathedral gong.
My self-confidence can be measured out in teaspoons mixed into my poetry, and it still always tastes funny in my mouth.
Tonight I feel the stars are out_x000D_ to use me for target practice.
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.
Or from Browning some "Pomegranate," which if cut deep down the middle Shows a heart within blood-tinctured, of a veined humanity.
I saw the gooseflesh on my skin. I did not know what made it. I was not cold. Had a ghost passed over? No, it was the poetry.
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