Not only a vibrant woman of great spirit who rules her domain wisely, night offers respite from the daily struggle to survive, for in a dark world, Blackness cannot be used as a marker of difference. Since there is no need to dissemble, the poet can come alive in her presence. From Shadowed Dreams . Rutgers University Press, 1989. Copyright 1989 by Rutgers University Press.
Night wears a garment All velvet soft, all violet blue . . .
And over her face she draws a veil As shimmering fine as floating dew . . . And here and there In the black of her hair The subtle hands of Night Move slowly with their gem-starred light. The first, most important characteristic of the nightwoman is her sheer scale. But the autonomous night has a special felicity for women writers, one which Bennett here exploits fully. Contrary to convention, night is here explicitly contrasted with day, as the title suggests, while day itself is rejected as the disorderly realm of aggressive and disjointed activity.