Daylight and Moonlight
Daylight and Moonlight - meaning Summary
Daylight Yields to Revelation
Longfellow contrasts ordinary daytime perception with the deeper understanding that comes at night. By day the moon and a poet’s song seem faint, ghostlike, or insubstantial; when night falls both the moon and the poem are clarified, luminous, and revelatory. The poem argues that context—quiet, darkness, and reflection—transforms vague impressions into meaning, so that nature and art disclose their full grace under different conditions of perception.
Read Complete AnalysesIn broad daylight, and at noon, Yesterday I saw the moon Sailing high, but faint and white, As a schoolboy's paper kite. In broad daylight, yesterday, I read a poet's mystic lay; And it seemed to me at most As a phantom, or a ghost. But at length the feverish day Like a passion died away, And the night, serene and still, Fell on village, vale, and hill. Then the moon, in all her pride, Like a spirit glorified, Filled and overflowed the night With revelations of her light. And the Poet's song again Passed like music through my brain; Night interpreted to me All its grace and mystery.
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