Night

William Blake’s “Night” presents an uncommonly positive picture of night. Normally a time of day associated with fear, danger, and obscuring darkness, Blake reimagines night as a liminal (in-between) space where the spiritual and material come into contact. The main thing preventing night from manifesting its negative qualities is a kind of religious grace. This grace is represented through the symbolic light or brightness that protects humanity and other creatures from the dangers inherent in darkness. Blake represents this light through the figures of the angel and the lion, both of which carry a rich history of religious associations (See: Symbols & Motifs). For the speaker, these figures demonstrate how religious belief can shield one from danger and how earthly suffering can transmute into a rich afterlife.

Despite the poem’s positive message about night, the work still contains suggestions of its dangers. The poem opens with the speaker stating that they “must seek” (Line 4) for their nest. The word “must” implies that this retreat to a safe place to sleep is necessary, and the word “seek” suggests the difficulty of seeing that makes dark night dangerous. The second stanza develops this sense of danger by saying, “[f]arewell [to] green fields and happy grove” (Line 9).