"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!"

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"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?"

"Night begins to muffle up the day."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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!"

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

"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."

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

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

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

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

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

"Swiftly walk over the western wave, Spirit of 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."

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

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

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

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

"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!"

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

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

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

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

"Making night hideous."

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

"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."

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

"On dreary night let lusty sunshine fall."

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

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

"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."

"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."

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

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

"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."