Plants that wake when others sleep. Timid jasmine buds that keep their fragrance to themselves all day, but when the sunlight dies away let the delicious secret out to every breeze that roams about.

Moore’s image turns the jasmine into a figure for hidden qualities that reveal themselves only under the right conditions. The “timid” buds withhold their perfume in daylight—when the world is busy and exposed—but release it at dusk, when “every breeze” can carry the scent. The passage suggests that some beauties, emotions, or truths are not made for display or for the glare of public attention; they emerge in privacy, quiet, or darkness. It also participates in a Romantic fascination with twilight and night as times of heightened sensibility, when nature seems more intimate and expressive than in the rational brightness of day.