Night, welcome art thou
-- Speaker (Line 1)

Importance: The poem begins with this address to night. In doing so, the poem creates a sense that night is a character, personified and humanized to be as real as the speaker herself. This sets the stage for the rest of the poem, which will focus primarily on the relationship between the speaker and night.

nott more sad then I
-- Speaker (Line 2)

Importance: In this quote, the speaker compares herself to the figure of the night. It is the first place in the poem where she makes this direct comparison. The comparative structure of "not more" allows her to emphasize the nature of the relationship between herself and night (2). She creates room for herself to be more sad, but does so in a way that nonetheless focuses primarily on the similarities, not the differences.

Never could'st thou find fitter company
-- Speaker (Line 3)

Importance: This line introduces the theme of companionship. Though the poem...