Come, Night; Come, Romeo

William Shakespeare

 Come, night; come, Romeo; come, thou day in night;
 For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night
 Whiter than new snow on a raven's back.
 Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow'd night,
 Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die,
 Take him and cut him out in little stars,
 And he will make the face of heaven so fine
 That all the world will be in love with night
 And pay no worship to the garish sun.

Commentary

The stunning beauty of this passage never fails to floor me. It is an excerpt from Act 3 Scene 2 of Romeo and Juliet, Juliet speaking.

Commentary: Biographically we all know about Shakespeare or Bacon or whomever (I believe Shakespeare wrote the works attributed to him).

I became aware of this passage when I rented an audiocassette of the great speeches of Robert Kennedy. He quoted

        when he shall die,
        Take him and cut him out in little stars,
        And he will make the face of heaven so fine
        That all the world will be in love with night

in a speech about his brother John shortly after John’s death. It is interesting to note that that the last line from the full excerpt above is recycled in Webber’s “Phantom of the Opera” in the song “Music of the Night”:

Slowly, gently, night unfurls its splendour Grasp it, sense it, tremulous and tender Turn your face away from the garish light of day Turn your thoughts away from cold, unfeeling light And listen to the music of the night. . .

Ronald J. Lundquist

The Wondering Minstrels, poem #570 · 8 October 2000

Guest poem submitted by Ronald Lundquist

Fair use

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From the Wondering Minstrels mailing list, 1999–2008.

Amit Chakrabarti · 9 October 2000

Ronald J. Lundquist:

This attribution to Webber is inaccurate for he didn’t write the words. The lyrics are due to Hart and Stilgoe.

Also, to call a natural (under the circumstances) and simple turn of phrase like “garish light of day” a recycling of Shakespeare’s line is stretching things too far.

All that said, Shakespeare’s lines are sublime. Thank you for posting this.

–Amit.

Rodney Fields · 1 December 2007

Considering that Shakespeare is second only to the Bible in the number of times cited, quoted, reused, etc., I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that the lines from Phantom of the Opera were inspired by Shakespeare’s lines. The phantom hates the day and worships the night.Juliet states that all the world will love the night and pay no worship to the day.seems to me to not be a stretch at all.

Rodney