Night

"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."