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Lamplight, lamplight, better than the ceiling,

spreading soft light over the walls and floor,

gives me such a tender evening feeling—

I love a shadowy interior.

Bright high lights remind me of the daytime,

tall and cascading, getting everywhere.

I like low lights, with their subtle glow. I’m

walking through them, passing here to there.

You don’t get that with ceiling light, oh no,

whose eyes make all their heaven or their hell.

But with a lamp, the rays and shadows grow

from the same plane in which you and I dwell.

Let ceiling light keep daytime; but at night,

be warmed, in soul and psychē, by lamplight.