A Nocturnal upon St. Lucy's Day, Being the Shortest Day

I'm a believer in long winter's naps. I think if I lived by myself, I would pretty much hibernate for the winter. So I didn't get up--or worse yet, stay up--to see the lunar eclipse last night. I did see that the moon on the crest of the old-fallen snow gave the luster of sunset to objects below. That would have been around 4 am U.S. eastern time.

I share John Donne's fear of the dark in his poem about the winter solstice, "A Nocturnal upon St. Lucy's Day, Being the Shortest Day"--a poem written after the death of his beloved wife:

'Tis the year's midnight, and it is the day's,
Lucy's, who scarce seven hours herself unmasks,
The sun is spent, and now his flasks
Send forth light squibs, no constant rays;
The world's whole sap is sunk;
The general balm the hydroptic earth hath drunk,
Whither, as to the bed's feet, life is shrunk,
Dead and interred; yet all these seem to laugh,
Compared with me, who am their epitaph.

Study me then, you who shall lovers be
At the next world, that is, at the next spring:
For I am every dead thing,
In whom love wrought new alchemy.
For his art did express
A quintessence even from nothingness,
From dull privations, and lean emptiness;
He ruined me, and I am re-begot
Of absence, darkness, death; things which are not.

All others, from all things, draw all that's good,
Life, soul, form, spirit, whence they being have;
I, by love's limbeck, am the grave
Of all that's nothing. Oft a flood
Have we two wept, and so
Drowned the whole world, us two; oft did we grow
To be two chaoses, when we did show
Care to aught else; and often absences
Withdrew our souls, and made us carcasses.

But I am by her death (which word wrongs her)
Of the first nothing the elixir grown;
Were I a man, that I were one
I needs must know; I should prefer
If I were any beast,
Some ends, some means, yea plants, yea stones detest,
And love all, all some properties invest;
If I an ordinary nothing were,
As shadow, a light and body must be here.

But I am none; nor will my Sun renew.
You lovers, for whose sake the lesser sun
At this time to the Goat is run
To fetch new lust, and give it you,
Enjoy your summer all;
Since she enjoys her long night's festival,
Let me prepare towards her, and let me call
This hour her Vigil, and her Eve, since this
Both the year's, and the day's deep midnight is.

When I think of the line about "absence, darkness, death," I also try to think of the ending of this poem, in which the speaker resolves to "prepare towards" summer and to "call/This hour her Vigil." I like the way it implies that a person will be nobler after suffering through these long nights.

How about you--do you curse the darkness or light a candle?