James Weldon Johnson’s “Mother Night,” a Petrarchan sonnet, metaphorically dramatizes night as the calm union of the soul with the Oversoul. The speaker, influenced by Eastern as well as Christian philosophical tenets, draws a parallel between the conflict of day and night in the cosmos and his own struggle with the pairs of opposites in his earthly sojourn.
First Quatrain: “Eternities before the first-born day
Like a “brooding mother,” that is, a mother bird who is sitting on her brood of eggs and then who continues to protect and keep them warm as baby birds, “Calm Night” kept watch over the unmanifested entity until the “first-born day,” before the first planets were created and hurled into activity: “ere the first sun fledged his wings of flame.”
The mature planet of the “sun” is like a bird that is now flying off on its own, after having been tenderly nurtured by its mother. “Mother Night” tenderly nurtured the growing cosmos that ultimately resulted in planets and people.
Johnson’s metaphoric “Night” represents the non-vibratory realm of reality where nothing is manifested, only the mind of God exists in that vibrationless realm. There is no creation only a peaceful possibility, a potential. Until God chooses to create beings to populate His cosmos, He simply “broods” like a “mother over chaos.” Here the term chaos does not refer to our modern usage of confusion and disorder but to infinite formlessness. The term originates from the Greek “Khaos,” indicating a dark void from which the gods originated.
Second Quatrain: “And whirling suns shall blaze and then decay”
The second quatrain describes the plight of “whirling suns” as they “blaze and then decay.” Those planets of fire will eventually burn out and after they do, they will return “[b]ack to Nirvanic peace.” The speaker employs the term Nirvanic, adjectival form for Nirvana, the Buddhist term for God-union, which is Samadhi for the Hindus and Salvation for the Christians.
The speaker cleverly plays by punning “whirling suns,” whereas “sun” puns “son.” With God as “Mother Night,” Her “suns” (sons) will “run their fiery courses” (live their passionate lives) and then recede back into the arms of the brooding mother or God.
First Sestet: “So when my feeble sun of life burns out”
The sestet then shifts from the cosmos to the speaker himself, a son of the night mother. The speaker vows that he will react to his death a certain way, but he does not clarify that way yet, but merely sets up the conditions for his final claim. As his life comes to an end, when he knows that it is the “hour for my long sleep,” he will be fully aware that his life is ebbing.
Second Sestet: “Welcome the darkness without fear or doubt”
And he will “[w]elcome the darkness without fear or doubt.” His strong faith and intuition allow him to realize that his soul is going home. His eyelids may droop, but his soul is ever ensconced in the intractable protection by the beautiful mother, the Mother Night, who will throughout eternity continue to brood over and fiercely guide and guard her beloved son.
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