“It beckons, I follow.
Good-by to the light,
I am going, O whither?
Out into the night.”
The Messenger at Night.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
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Richard Henry Stoddard 9
American poet 1825–1903Related quotes

“I am born into an environment — I know not whence I came nor whither I go nor who I am.”
Science and Humanism (1951)
Context: I am born into an environment — I know not whence I came nor whither I go nor who I am. This is my situation as yours, every single one of you. The fact that everyone always was in this same situation, and always will be, tells me nothing. Our burning question as to the whence and whither — all we can ourselves observe about it is the present environment. That is why we are eager to find out about it as much as we can. That is science, learning, knowledge; it is the true source of every spiritual endeavour of man. We try to find out as much as we can about the spatial and temporal surroundings of the place in which we find ourselves put by birth…

Jean-Christophe (1904 - 1912), Journey's End: The Burning Bush (1911)
Context: "Thou art come back to me, Thou art come back to me! O Thou, whom I had lost!... Why didst Thou abandon me?"
"To fulfil My task, that thou didst abandon."
"What task?"
"My fight."
"What need hast Thou to fight? Art Thou not master of all?"
"I am not the master."
"Art Thou not All that Is?"
"I am not all that is. I am Life fighting Nothingness. I am not Nothingness, I am the Fire which burns in the Night. I am not the Night. I am the eternal Light; I am not an eternal destiny soaring above the fight. I am free Will which struggles eternally. Struggle and burn with Me."
"At the San Francisco Airport" (1954)
The Collected Poems of Yvor Winters (1960)

“Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
Source: In Country Sleep, and Other Poems

The Divine Milieu, p. 128
The Divine Milieu (1960)

Whenever God Shines His Light
Song lyrics, Avalon Sunset (1989)

" Merlin and the Gleam http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/T/TennysonAlfred/verse/demeter/merlingleam.html", st. 1 (1889)