Dawn

Night is a sleeping creature—not “like” one sound asleep (simile) but actually a sleeping being (metaphor, personification). Night is stirred to wakefulness by a kiss from an angel. Night blushes and that becomes the stunning spectrum of colors of a sunrise.

In creating a character called Night, the poem endows a neutral thing with human characteristics—a literary strategy known as personification. In gifting Night with human characteristics—the capital letter, the ability to sleep, the capacity to blush, and the vulnerability of a sensitive innocent stirred to wakefulness by the white-robed angel—Dunbar endows the otherwise impersonal forces and phenomena of the natural world with personality and emotions. Dunbar knows the night does not sleep and cannot blush. To position humanity within that natural world denies nature any energy by restricting human interaction with it. It is difficult for humans to feel close to a planet slowly revolving back toward the sun. By upcycling the night into Night against the logic of the natural sciences, the poem invites the reader into the drama of a sunrise and kindles the possibility of the imagination given free rein over any natural phenomena. Night takes on the characteristics of a human; Dunbar’s use of personification creates a sense of quiet beauty and vulnerability.