This dead of midnight is the noon of thought,
And Wisdom mounts her zenith with the stars.
At this still hour the self-collected soul
Turns inward, and beholds a stranger there
Of high descent, and more than mortal rank;
An embryo God; a spark of fire divine.
Bio: Alexander Bicknell, author, was an industrious littérateur of the last quarter of the eighteenth century, whose writings received received ridicule or faint praise in the Monthly Review. He died 22 August 1796 in St. Thomas's Hospital, London.