midnight
She meant to surprise her father some day with this poem . The great world was so full of mystery -- of seductive beauty and terror and of strange , enticing charm ! She saw and felt it always . Even now , in the driving , whirling storm without , in the darkness of her chamber , or when she looked through the frosted panes into the starry skies at midnight , always it was there all about her , -- a something unexpressed , unseen , but close -- close to her , -- the mystery which throbbed through all her small being , and which she was one day to find out and understand and put into her great epic . She thought over her father 's question , hardly knowing why she liked that last stanza best . She slowly wound up her ball of yarn and thrust the needles through it , and dropped it into her mother 's workbasket before she replied ; then , taking up her candle , she looked shyly in her father 's eyes . `` Because I like where it says : ` This pleasure more sharp than pain , That baffles and lures me so . ' ''