Night

"Night is a stealthy, evil Raven, Wrapt to the eyes in his black wings."

"The summer demands and takes away too much. But night, the reserved, the reticent, gives more than it takes."

"Night falls. Or has fallen. Why is it that night falls, instead of rising, like the dawn? Yet if you look east, at sunset, you can see night rising, not falling; darkness lifting into the sky, up from the horizon, like a black sun behind cloud cover. Like smoke from an unseen fire, a line of fire just below the horizon, brushfire or a burning city. Maybe night falls because it’s heavy, a thick curtain pulled up over the eyes. Wool blanket."

"The uniform darkness, fount of the gods, The place from which the birds come... Open to the Duat that is on her northern side With her rear in the east and her head in the west."

"Came in wan night The shadow-goer stepping."

"But we that have but span-long life, The thicker must lay on the pleasure; And since time will not stay, We'll add night to the day, Thus, thus we'll fill the measure."

"Night comes, world-jewelled, * * * The stars rush forth in myriads as to wage War with the lines of Darkness; and the moon, Pale ghost of Night, comes haunting the cold earth After the sun's red sea-death—quietless."

"I love night more than day—she is so lovely; But I love night the most because she brings My love to me in dreams which scarcely lie."

"Night's black Mantle covers all alike."

"II est doux, à travers les brumes, de voir naître L'étoile dans l'azur, la lampe à la fenêtre Les fleuves de charbon monter au firmament Et la lune verser son pâle enchantement. Je verrai les printemps, les étés, les automnes; Et quand viendra l'hiver aux neiges monotones, Je fermerai partout portières et volets Pour bâtir dans la nuit mes féeriques palais."

"II était tard; ainsi qu'une médaille neuve La pleine lune s'étalait, Et la solennité de la nuit, comme un fleuve, Sur Paris dormant ruisselait."

"I am the Night, I am Batman."

"Two years of nights have turned me into a nocturnal animal."

"I live among the creatures of the night I haven't got the will to try and fight Against a new tomorrow, so I guess I'll just believe it That tomorrow never comes. A safe night, I'm living in the forest of my dream I know the night is not as it would seem I must believe in something, so I'll make myself believe it That this night will never go."

"When it draws near to witching time of night."

"The Night has a thousand eyes, The Day but one; Yet the light of the bright world dies With the dying sun."

"Oh God, midnight’s not bad, you wake and go back to sleep, one or two’s not bad, you toss but sleep again. Five or six in the morning, there’s hope, for dawn’s just under the horizon. But three, now, Christ, three ! Doctors say the body’s at low tide then. The soul is out. The blood moves slow. You’re the nearest to dead you’ll ever be save dying. Sleep is a patch of death, but three in the morn, full wide-eyed staring, is living death! You dream with your eyes open. God, if you had strength to rouse up, you’d slaughter your half-dreams with buckshot! But no, you lie pinned to a deep well-bottom that’s burned dry. The moon rolls by to look at you down there, with its idiot face. It’s a long way back to sunset, a far way on to dawn, so you summon all the fool things of your life, the stupid lovely things done with people known so very well who are now so very dead – And wasn’t it true, had he read somewhere, more people in hospitals die at 3 than at any other time...?"

"The night is the hardest time to be alive...and 4 knows all my secrets."

"Some nights are made for torture, or reflection, or the savoring of loneliness."

"I love the silent hour of night, For blissful dreams may then arise, Revealing to my charmèd sight, What may not bless my waking eyes."

"Night was come, and her planets were risen: a safe, still night: too serene for the companionship of fear."

"Most glorious night! Thou wert not sent for slumber!"

"For the night Shows stars and women in a better light."

"The stars are forth, the moon above the tops Of the snow-shining mountains—Beautiful! I linger yet with Nature, for the night Hath been to me a more familiar face Than that of man; and in her starry shade Of dim and solitary loveliness I learn'd the language of another world."

"The Shadows now so long do grow, That Brambles like tall Cedars show, Mole-hills seem Mountains, and the Ant Appears a monstrous Elephant."

"There never was night that had no morn."

"It was a wonderful night, such a night as is only possible when we are young, dear reader. The sky was so starry, so bright that, looking at it, one could not help asking oneself whether ill-humoured and capricious people could live under such a sky. That is a youthful question too, dear reader, very youthful, but may the Lord put it more frequently into your heart!"

"Dark the Night, with breath all flowers, And tender broken voice that fills With ravishment the listening hours,— Whisperings, wooings, Liquid ripples, and soft ring-dove cooings In low-toned rhythm that love's aching stills! Dark the night Yet is she bright, For in her dark she brings the mystic star, Trembling yet strong, as is the voice of love, From some unknown afar."

"O radiant Dark! O darkly fostered ray! Thou hast a joy too deep for shallow Day."

"The unwelcome November rain had perversely stolen the day's last hour and pawned it with that ancient fence, the night."

"I have been one acquainted with the night. I have walked out in rain—and back in rain. I have outwalked the furthest city light."

"The longest day at last bends down to evening."

"The watch-dog's voice that bay'd the whispering wind, And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind: These all in sweet confusion sought the shade, And fill'd each pause the nightingale had made."

"Why are the heavens not filled with light? Why is the universe plunged into darkness?"

"Slowly, gently night unfurls its splendour. Grasp it, sense it, tremulous and tender. Turn your face away from the garish light of day, Turn your thoughts away from cold, unfeeling light, And listen to the music of the night."

"A late lark twitters from the quiet skies: And from the west, Where the sun, his day's work ended, Lingers as in content, There falls on the old, gray city An influence luminous and serene, A shining peace."

"The smoke ascends In a rosy-and-golden haze. The spires Shine and are changed. In the valley Shadows rise. The lark sings on. The sun Closing his benediction, Sinks, and the darkening air Thrills with the sense of the triumphing night,— Night with train of stars And her great gift of sleep."

"There is a dead spot in the night, that coldest, blackest time when the world has forgotten evening and dawn is not yet a promise. A time when it is far too early to arise, but so late that going to bed makes small sense."

"Now deep in ocean sunk the lamp of light, And drew behind the cloudy vale of night."

"At night, to his own dark fancies a prey, He lies like a hedgehog rolled up the wrong way, Tormenting himself with his prickles."

"Then, as he wended his way, by swamp and stream and awful woodland, to the farm-house where he happened to be quartered, every sound of nature, at that witching hour, fluttered his excited imagination: the moan of the whip-poor-will from the hill side; the boding cry of the tree-toad, that harbinger of storm; the dreary hooting of the screech-owl; or the sudden rustling in the thicket of birds frightened from their roost. The fire-flies, too, which sparkled most vividly in the darkest places, now and then startled him, as one of uncommon brightness would stream across his path; and if, by chance, a huge blockhead of a beetle came winging his blundering flight against him, the poor varlet was ready to give up the ghost, with the idea that he was struck with a witch's token."

"The whole length of the night is as the day to them, and the coming of darkness is as the rising of the sun by reason of that hope which exalts their hearts and inebriates them by its meditation."

"Watchman, what of the night?"

"Night, when deep sleep falleth on men."

"The night cometh when no man can work."

"'Tis the witching hour of night, Orbed is the moon and bright, And the stars they glisten, glisten, Seeming with bright eyes to listen— For what listen they?"

"Now Rann, the Kite, brings home the night That Mang, the Bat, sets free— The herds are shut in byre and hut, For loosed till dawn are we. This is the hour of pride and power, Talon and tush and claw. Oh, hear the call!—Good hunting all That keep the Jungle Law!"

"Noć je saveznik tužnih ljudi."

"People talk about nightfall, or night falling, or dusk falling, and it’s never seemed right to me. Perhaps they once meant befalling. As in night befalls. As in night happens. Perhaps they, whoever they were, thought of a falling sun. That might be it, except that that ought to give us dayfall. Day fell on Rupert the Bear. And we know, if we’ve ever read a book, that day doesn’t fall or rise. It breaks. In books, day breaks, and night falls. In life, night rises from the ground. The day hangs on for as long as it can, bright and eager, absolutely and positively the last guest to leave the party, while the ground darkens, oozing night around your ankles, swallowing for ever that dropped contact lens, making you miss that low catch in the gully on the last ball of the last over."

"In the dark I rest, unready for the light which dawns day after day, eager to be shared. Black silk, shelter me. I need more of the night before I open eyes and heart to illumination. I must still grow in the dark like a root not ready, not ready at all."

"I heard the trailing garments of the Night Sweep through her marble halls."

"O holy Night! from thee I learn to bear What man has borne before! Thou layest thy fingers on the lips of Care, And they complain no more."

"Then stars arise, and the night is holy."

"And the night shall be filled with music And the cares, that infest the day, Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs, And as silently steal away."

"God makes sech nights, all white an' still Fur'z you can look or listen, Moonshine an' snow on field an' hill, All silence an' all glisten."

"Night hath a thousand eyes."

"It was one of those nights One of those nights When you feel the world stop turning You were standing there There was music in the air I should have been away But I knew I had to stay."

"Night is very old, older than the day; night was before day was even a dream in the mind of the creator. Where light and life are, night and death were and will be again."

"This is a night for song and sin and drink, for come the morrow, the virtuous and the vile burn together."

"Quiet night, that brings Rest to the labourer, is the outlaw's day, In which he rises early to do wrong, And when his work is ended dares not sleep."

"It was a night so beautiful that your soul seemed hardly able to bear the prison of the body."

"Night...was dense, thicker than the very walls, and it was empty, so black, so immense that within it you could brush against appalling things and feel roaming and prowling around a strange, mysterious horror."

"The warm night claimed her. In a moment it was part of her. She walked on the grass, and her shoes were instantly soaked. She flung up her arms to the sky. Power ran to her fingertips. Excitement was communicated from the waiting trees, and the orchard, and the paddock; the intensity of their secret life caught at her and made her run. It was nothing like the excitement of ordinary looking forward, of birthday presents, of Christmas stockings, but the pull of a magnet—her grandfather had shown her once how it worked, little needles springing to the jaws—and now night and the sky above were a vast magnet, and the things that waited below were needles, caught up in the great demand"

"A night of tears! for the gusty rain Had ceased, but the eaves were dripping yet; And the moon look'd forth, as tho' in pain, With her face all white and wet."

"I like the night. Without the dark, we'd never see the stars."

"No one but Night, with tears on her dark face, Watches beside me in this windy place."

"O thievish Night, Why shouldst thou, but for some felonious end, In thy dark lantern thus close up the stars, That nature hung in heaven, and filled their lamps With everlasting oil, to give due light To the misled and lonely traveller?"

"And when night Darkens the streets, then wander forth the sons Of Belial, flown with insolence and wine."

"Where eldest Night And Chaos, ancestors of nature, hold Eternal anarchy, amidst the noise Of endless wars, and by confusion stand."

"Sable-vested Night, eldest of things."

"... For now began Night with her sullen wings to double-shade The desert; fowls in their clay nests were couch'd, And now wild beasts came forth, the woods to roam."

"Darkness now rose, As daylight sunk, and brought in low'ring Night Her shadowy offspring."

"Night is the time for rest; How sweet, when labours close, To gather round an aching breast The curtain of repose, Stretch the tired limbs, and lay the head Down on our own delightful bed!"

"I'm going out after supper to walk all over the old orchard by moonlight. I suppose I'll have to go to bed finally... though I've always thought sleeping on moonlight nights a waste of time..."

"Then awake!—the heavens look bright, my dear! 'Tis never too late for delight, my dear! And the best of all ways To lengthen our days Is to steal a few hours from the night, my dear!"

"The sky grew darker, painted blue on blue, one stroke at a time, into deeper and deeper shades of night."

"There were once two sisters who were not afraid of the dark because the dark was full of the other's voice across the room, because even when the night was thick and starless they walked home together from the river seeing who could last the longest without turning on her flashlight, not afraid because sometimes in the pitch of night they'd lie on their backs in the middle of the path and look up until the stars came back and when they did, they'd reach their arms up to touch them and did."

"It is night: now all fountains speak more loudly. And my soul too is a fountain. It is night: only now all the songs of the lovers awaken. And my soul too is the song of a lover. An unstilled, an unstillable something is in me; it wants to be heard. A craving for love is in me, which itself speaks the language of love. [...] It is night: alas that I must be light! And thirst for the nocturnal! And loneliness! It is night: now my longing breaks out of me like a well – I long to speak. It is night: now all fountains speak more loudly. And my soul too is a fountain. It is night: only now all the songs of the lovers awaken. And my soul too is the song of a lover."

"The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees, The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas, The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor, And the highwayman came riding."

"We love the night and its quiet; and there is no night that we love so well as that on which the moon is coffined in clouds."

"Day is ended, Darkness shrouds The shoreless seas and lowering clouds."

"The night sky is only a sort of carbon paper, Blueblack, with the much-poked periods of stars Letting in the light, peephole after peephole— A bonewhite light, like death, behind all things."

"The moon is my mother. She is not sweet like Mary. Her blue garments unloose small bats and owls."

"Silence, ye wolves! while Ralph to Cynthia howls, And makes night hideous;—Answer him, ye owls!"

"O Night, most beautiful and rare! Thou giv'st the heavens their holiest hue, And through the azure fields of air Bring'st down the gentle dew."

"The night is well along; the day has drawn near. Let us therefore throw off the works belonging to darkness and let us put on the weapons of the light."

"Ce que j'ôte à mes nuits, je l'ajoute à mes jours."

"Qu'une nuit paraît longue à la douleur qui veille!"

"On dreary night let lusty sunshine fall."

"To all, to each, a fair good night, And pleasing dreams; and slumbers light."

"There was a sky somewhere above the tops of the buildings, with stars and a moon and all the things there are in a sky, but they were content to think of the distant street lights as planets and stars. If the lights prevented you from seeing the heavens, then perform a little magic and change reality to fit the need. The street lights were now planets and stars and moon."

"In the dead vast and middle of the night."

"Making night hideous."

"'Tis now the very witching time of night, When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out Contagion to this world."

"Now entertain conjecture of a time When creeping murmur and the poring dark Fills the wide vessel of the universe."

"And night is fled, Whose pitchy mantle overveil'd the earth."

"I must become a borrower of the night For a dark hour or twain."

"Come, seeling night, Skarf up the tender eye of pitiful day; And with thy bloody and invisible hand, Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond Which keeps me pale!"

"Light thickens; and the crow Makes wing to the rooky wood: Good things of the day begin to droop and drowse; Whiles night's black agents to their preys do rouse."

"The night is long that never finds the day."

"Now the hungry lion roars, And the wolf behowls the moon; Whilst the heavy ploughman snores, All with weary task foredone."

"This is the night That either makes me or fordoes me quite."

"Come, gentle night, come, loving, blackbrow'd night."

"How beautiful this night! the balmiest sigh Which Vernal Zephyrs breathe in evening's ear Were discord to the speaking quietude That wraps this moveless scene. Heaven's ebon vault, Studded with stars, unutterably bright, Through which the moon's unclouded grandeur rolls, Seems like a canopy which love has spread To curtain her sleeping world."

"Swiftly walk over the western wave, Spirit of Night!"

"Night is a time of rigor, but also of mercy. There are truths which one can see only when it’s dark."

"In day-time we investigate, but at night believe."

"It is as though night set free the soul and taught its independence of physical organization."

"How beautiful is night! A dewy freshness fills the silent air; No mist obscures, nor cloud nor speck nor stain Breaks the serene of heaven."

"The longest way must have its close,—the gloomiest night will wear on to a morning."

"Moonlight knew no colors and traced the contours of the terrain only very softly. It covered the land a dirty gray, strangling life all night long. This world molded in lead, where nothing moved but the wind that fell sometimes like a shadow over the gray forests, and where nothing lived but the scent of the naked earth, was the only world he accepted, for it was much like the world of his soul."

"Down the hill I went, and then, I forgot the ways of men, For night-scents, heady and damp and cool Wakened ecstasy in me On the brink of a shining pool."

"Dead sounds at night come from the inmost hills, Like footsteps upon wool."

"Now droops the milkwhite peacock like a ghost, And like a ghost she glimmers on to me. Now lies the Earth all Danaë to the stars, And all thy heart lies open unto me. Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me."

"I was heavy with the even, When she fit her glimmering tapers Round the day's dead sanctities."

"Now black and deep the Night begins to fall, A shade immense! Sunk in the quenching Gloom, Magnificent and vast, are heaven and earth. Order confounded lies; all beauty void, Distinction lost, and gay variety One universal blot: such the fair power Of light, to kindle and create the whole."

"Night is certainly more novel and less profane than day."

"This is the ending. Now not day only shall be beloved, but night too shall be beautiful and blessed and all its fear pass away!"

"I felt so lonesome I most wished I was dead. The stars were shining, and the leaves rustled in the woods ever so mournful; and I heard an owl, away off, who-whooing about somebody that was dead, and a whippowill and a dog crying about somebody that was going to die; and the wind was trying to whisper something to me, and I couldn’t make out what it was, and so it made the cold shivers run over me."

"Come, drink the mystic wine of Night, Brimming with silence and the stars; While earth, bathed in this holy light, Is seen without its scars."

"It was then night; the sound and quiet sleep Had through the earth the wearied bodies caught; The woods, the raging seas were fallen to rest; When that the stars had half their course declined; The fields whist, beasts, and fowls of divers hue, And what so that in the broad lakes remained, Or yet among the bushy thicks of brier, Laid down to sleep by silence of the night 'Gan swage their cares, mindless of travails past."

"When, upon orchard and lane, breaks the white foam of the Spring When, in extravagant revel, the Dawn, a Bacchante upleaping, Spills, on the tresses of Night, vintages golden and red When, as a token at parting, munificent Day for remembrance, Gives, unto men that forget, Ophirs of fabulous ore."

"Press close bare-bosom'd night—press close magnetic nourishing night! Night of south winds—night of the large few stars! Still nodding night—mad naked summer night."

"Night begins to muffle up the day."

"Mysterious night! when our first parent knew Thee from report divine, and heard thy name, Did he not tremble for this lovely frame, This glorious canopy of light and blue?"

"The summer skies are darkly blue, The days are still and bright, And Evening trails her robes of gold Through the dim halls of Night."

"Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light, I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night."

"Melancholy were the sounds on a winter's night."

"On nights like this when the air is so clear, you end up saying things you ordinarily wouldn’t. Without even noticing what you’re doing, you open up your heart and just start talking to the person next to you—you talk as if you have no audience but the glittering stars, far overhead."

"Night, sable goddess! from her ebon throne, In rayless majesty, now stretches forth Her leaden sceptre o'er a slumbering world. Silence, how dead! and darkness, how profound! Nor eye, nor list'ning ear, an object finds; Creation sleeps. 'Tis as the general pulse Of life stood still, and nature made a pause; An awful pause! prophetic of her end."

"How is night's sable mantle labor'd o'er, How richly wrought with attributes divine! What wisdom shines! what love! this midnight pomp, This gorgeous arch, with golden worlds inlaid Built with divine ambition!"

"Mine is the night, with all her stars."

"Öö ees, surm selja taga. (EVS)"