I said to dawn, Be sudden; to eve, Be soon.

In these compressed imperatives—addressed to “dawn” and “eve”—Thompson dramatizes an impatient, yearning consciousness that tries to command time itself. Dawn and evening stand for the day’s opening and closing, so urging them to arrive quickly suggests a mind caught between anticipation and exhaustion: the speaker wants relief, change, or reunion so intensely that even the natural pace of hours feels intolerable. The balanced phrasing (“Be sudden… Be soon”) gives the line a liturgical, incantatory quality, as if prayer or spell might accelerate the world. Read more broadly, it captures a recurring Thompson theme: the soul’s restless desire pressing against temporal limits, seeking a swifter passage to what it loves or fears.