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Night

Anne Brontë

1820 –

1849

I love the silent hour of night,
For blissful dreams may then arise,
Revealing to my charmèd sight
What may not bless my waking eyes.

And then a voice may meet my ear,
That death has silenced long ago;
And hope and rapture may appear
Instead of solitude and woe.

Cold in the grave for years has lain
The form it was my bliss to see;
And only dreams can bring again
The darling of my heart to me.

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on November 22, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.

Anne Brontë, born on January 17, 1820, in Thornton, England, was a novelist and poet. Under the pseudonym Acton Bell, she published two novels: Agnes Grey (Thomas Cautley Newby, 1847) and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (Thomas Cautley Newby, 1848). Brontë died of tuberculosis on May 28, 1849, shortly after the deaths of both Branwell and Emily Brontë

Themes

About this Poem

“Night” was written by Anne Brontë early in 1845, but was not published until 1915, when it appeared in Brontë Poems (Smith, Elder & Co., 1915). About the poem, Krisztina Kodó, department chair of English at Kodolányi János University of Applied Sciences in Hungary, wrote in her article, “Cultural Reflections of Time and Space that Contradict a Legacy in Anne Brontë’s Poetry” found in Open Cultural Studies, Vol. 6, No. 1 (2022), “This short poem, titled ‘Night’ and consisting of three stanzas with abab alternating rhymes, offers yet another honest approach to Anne’s reality. This poem was written while Anne was still employed by the Robinsons as governess, during the time Anne’s brother Branwell was having an affair with Mrs. Robinson.” Kodó continues, “The poem draws a distinct parallel between night and day, where the night is the ‘silent hour of night’ when ‘blissful dreams’ emerge, and the day is associated with ‘solitude and woe.’ Furthermore, night is traditionally the time for magic and the supernatural, a theme that is intricately woven into the fabric of the poem as it offers ‘hope and rapture’ and ‘bliss.’ Through the dreams of the I-speaker, long-awaited desires visualize and ‘bring again the darling of my heart to me.’”

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More by this poet

Memory

Brightly the sun of summer shone
Green fields and waving woods upon,
soft winds wandered by;
Above, a sky of purest blue,
Around, bright flowers of loveliest hue,
Allured the gazer’s eye.

Anne Brontë

1920

The Consolation

Though bleak these woods, and damp the ground
With fallen leaves so thickly strown,
And cold the wind that wanders round
With wild and melancholy moan;

Anne Brontë

1920

Despondency

I have gone backward in the work,
The labour has not sped;
Drowsey and dark my spirit lies,
Heavy and dull as lead.

How can I rouse my sinking soul
From such a lethargy?
How can I break these iron chains
And set my spirit free?

Anne Brontë

1920

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