Lying awake, the speaker watches a moth that has slipped through a torn screen and now can’t settle. While the room stayed light, it hid in a corner; now, in the dark, it flings itself at the blank wall and at the glowing face of the clock, as if each pale surface were another lit home. The speaker’s tone is tender but slightly exasperated. The speaker wonders why moths abandon their proper outdoor life to rush at lamps, headlights, and railway warnings, breaking their wings and starving by morning. The dark outside seems far less dangerous than the false brightness they chase. The poem creates a hushed, restless, almost eerie nighttime mood, with the moth’s blind drive mirroring human sleeplessness and unease. Though the couple considers trapping it in a jar or coming with a net to turn it out toward living, they do nothing; they simply lie there, taking things as they are.
Lying Awake — Summary
This moth caught in the room tonight Squirmed up, sniper-style, between The rusty edges of the screen; Then, long as the room stayed light,
Lay here, content, in some cornerhole. Now that we've settled into bed Though, he can't sleep. Overhead, He throws himself at the blank wall.
Each night hordes of these flutterers haunt And climb my study windowpane; Fired by reflection, their insane Eyes gleam; they know what they want.
How do the petulant things survive? Out in the fields they have a place And proper work, furthering the race; Why this blind fanatical drive
Indoors? Why rush at every spark, Cigar, headlamp or railway warning To break off your wings and starve by morning? And what could a moth fear in the dark
Compared with what you meet inside? Still, he rams the fluorescent face Of the clock, thinks that's another place Of light and families, where he'll hide.
We ought to trap him in a jar, Or come like the white-coats with a net And turn him out toward living. Yet We don't; we take things as they are.