Call of the Night
Djuna Barnes
Dark, and the wind-blurred pines,
With a glimmer of light between.
Then I, entombed for an hourless night
With the world of things unseen.
Mist, the dust of flowers,
Leagues, heavy with promise of snow,
And a beckoning road ‘twixt vale and hill,
With the lure that all must know.
A light, my window’s gleam,
Soft, flaring its squares of red –
I loose the ache of the wilderness
And long for the fire instead.
You too know, old fellow?
Then, lift your head and bark.
It’s just the call of the lonesome place,
The winds and the housing dark.
About this poem
“Call of the Night” was published in Harper’s Weekly on Dec. 23, 1911. It appears in Barnes’ “Collected Poems: With Notes Toward the Memoirs” (University of Wisconsin Press, 2005).
About Djuna Barnes
Djuna Barnes was born in Cornwall-on-Hudson, N.Y, on June 12, 1892. She was an American novelist, poet, playwright, journalist and visual artist, as well as an important figure in the modernist movement. Her works include “Ryder” (Horace Liveright, 1928) and “Nightwood” (Harcourt Trade Publishers, 1937). Barnes died in New York City on June 18, 1982.
The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience. Email The Academy at poem-a-day@poets.org.
This poem is in the public domain. Distributed by King Features Syndicate.
