“The Darkest Hour” | Ella Higginson

The darkest hour is just before the dawn;

Turn from the deep, black valley of Despair,

And see the roses blooming everywhere,

In the lowliest spot as on the nurtured lawn.

There, shuddering in the wood the sweet-eyed fawn,

Crouching until the storm has spent its force,

Then with new courage leaping on its course;

So, when the darkest hour has passed, the dawn!

O Hope, thou shalt not die till life be gone!

For he who fights, whatever fate befall,

Let him be true, and he will conquer all;

The darkest hour is just before the dawn.

“The Darkest Hour” as it appears in Higginson’s The Voice of April-Land and Other Poems (1903).

“The Darkest Hour” as it appears in Higginson’s Four-Leaf Clover (1901).