{
 "id": "c-s-lewis/night",
 "title": "Night",
 "ordinal": "IX",
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "C. S. Lewis",
 "poet_slug": "c-s-lewis",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Spirits in Bondage",
 "book_slug": "spirits-in-bondage",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1919,
  "venue": "Spirits in Bondage (1919)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/spiritsinbondage00lewirich",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2003"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/c-s-lewis_poetry",
  "file": "spirits-in-bondage-chapter-9.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2003",
   "https://archive.org/details/spiritsinbondage00lewirich",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/101865124"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 34,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 50,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "After the fret and failure of this day,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And weariness of thought, O Mother Night,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Come with soft kiss to soothe our care away",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And all our little tumults set to right;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Most pitiful of all death’s kindred fair,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Riding above us through the curtained air",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On thy dusk car, thou scatterest to the earth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sweet dreams and drowsy charms of tender might",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And lovers’ dear delight before to-morrow’s birth.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thus art thou wont thy quiet lands to leave",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And pillared courts beyond the Milky Way",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wherein thou tarriest all our solar day",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While unsubstantial dreams before thee weave",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A foamy dance, and fluttering fancies play",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "About thy palace in the silver ray",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of some far, moony globe. But when the hour,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The long-expected comes, the ivory gates",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Open on noiseless hinge before thy bower",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Unbidden, and the jewelled chariot waits",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With magic steeds. Thou from the fronting rim",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bending to urge them, whilst thy sea-dark hair",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Falls in ambrosial ripples o’er each limb,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With beautiful pale arms, untrammelled, bare",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For horsemanship to those twin chargers fleet",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dost give full reign across the fires that flow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the wide floor of heaven, from off their feet",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Scattering the powdery star-dust as they go.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Come swiftly down the sky, O Lady Night,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fall through the shadow-country, O most kind,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shake out thy strands of gentle dreams and light",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For chains, wherewith thou still art used to bind",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With tenderest love of careful leeches’ art",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The bruised and weary heart",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In slumber blind.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}