Auld Daddy Darkness creeps frae his hole, Black as a blackamoor, blin' as a mole....

In Scots dialect, the speaker personifies nightfall as “Auld Daddy Darkness,” a folkloric figure who “creeps” out as daylight fades. The similes (“black as a blackamoor, blin’ as a mole”) intensify the sense of enveloping obscurity and the loss of sight that comes with night, using vivid, colloquial comparisons typical of vernacular verse. The line’s rhythm and alliteration (“black… blackamoor… blin’”) heighten its incantatory, storytelling quality, suggesting a comic-grotesque character rather than an abstract concept. Read today, the “blackamoor” comparison also registers as a period racialized term, reflecting older literary conventions rather than neutral description.