A Night Thought - Analysis

The Moon as a lesson in how to be

The poem’s central claim is that the Moon models a kind of emotional grace and forward motion that people, even when materially blessed, often refuse. Wordsworth opens with an exclamation that feels like a finger pointing upward: Lo! The Moon sails with happy destiny, a phrase that turns a simple night scene into a moral image. The Moon is not just pretty; she is going somewhere, and her going is glad.

Brightness that survives hiding

The first stanza insists on a paradox: the Moon is hid from mortal eye or only dimly seen, yet her brightness is real and waiting. When the clouds asunder fly, she appears with sudden clarity: How bright her mien! That word mien matters: it’s not only light but expression, a kind of face. The Moon’s face is bright not because nothing blocks it, but because it keeps its steady course until the blockage passes. The poem is already quietly arguing that obscurity is not the same as failure, and dimness is not the same as inner dimming.

A wealthy sourness that keeps walking

The second stanza pivots hard from sky to society: Far different we. Humans are a froward race (stubborn, perverse), and the cruelty of the observation is that this is true even for those rich in Fortune's grace. Instead of moving with happy destiny, they trudge with cherished sullenness—sullenness not as a passing mood but as something kept, almost treasured. The phrase sulleness of pace fuses inner attitude with outward motion: they don’t only feel grim; they walk grimly. And the accusation Ingrates lands like a moral verdict: they’ve been given gifts, and they repay them with a smileless face The whole year through.

The speaker catches himself wanting to droop

The final stanza turns the critique inward. The speaker admits he is not automatically exempt from the human habit: if kindred humours would make his spirit droop, it might even droop for drooping's sake—a startling phrase that frames gloom as self-indulgence, not only suffering. Here the key tension sharpens: the poem condemns cherished sullenness in others, and then recognizes the same temptation in the self. The mood shifts from satire to self-surveillance.

Fancy as both wake and rescue

Wordsworth addresses the Moon as Bright ship of heaven! and brings in Fancy following in thy wake. The Moon is a ship, and imagination is the water-trail behind it: to look at the Moon is to be pulled into a current of feeling and thought. But that current is ambivalent. Fancy can nourish inwardness, yet it can also encourage drooping if it becomes a private theater for mood. The speaker asks for a counter impulse—not the elimination of feeling, but an opposing force that keeps him moving the way the Moon moves: steadily, without cherished sourness.

Forgiveness as a decision, not a mood

The poem ends with And be forgiven, which sounds less like a conventional prayer than like an admission that choosing against gloom is also an ethical act. If sullenness is a kind of ingratitude, then resisting it requires pardon because the temptation itself has already bent the will. Wordsworth doesn’t pretend the mind can simply cheer up; instead he asks for help to take a different direction. The Moon’s lesson is not that life is always bright, but that brightness can be a stance—one that reappears when the clouds finally break.