101 Poems, Number 57

Favorite Poems Throughout My Life

57: “Good Night,” 1820, by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1793–1822)

A short and clear one by the guy

Who wasn’t always short and clear—

Its seems a kind of lover’s sigh

When bedtime is, perhaps, so near?

His life was nearly at its end

When Shelley crafted these brief lines.

Some problems without time to mend—

Like wounds resembling Frankenstein’s.*

Not stitches, no—not leaking scars.

Wounds from a life not always right.

And soon he’d drown. And all the stars

Would gather to proclaim, “Good night.”

*Frankenstein's creature, of course! But I love the rhyme!

Link to poem.