Quotes
Quotes about Night
And smale foules maken melodie,
That slepen alle night with open eye,
So priketh hem nature in hir corages;
Than longen folk to gon on pilgrimages.
He was a veray parfit gentil knight.
For May wol have no slogardie a-night.
The seson priketh every gentil herte,
And maketh him out of his slepe to sterte.
I pray thee let me and my fellow have
A haire of the dog that bit us last night.
A gentle knight was pricking on the plaine.
Full little knowest thou that hast not tride,
What hell it is in suing long to bide:
To loose good dayes, that might be better spent;
To wast long nights in pensive discontent;
To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow;
To feed on hope, to pine with feare and sorrow.
. . . . . . . . .
To fret thy soule with crosses and with cares;
To eate thy heart through comfortlesse dispaires;
To fawne, to crowche, to waite, to ride, to ronne,
To spend, to give, to want, to be undonne.
Unhappie wight, borne to desastrous end,
That doth his life in so long tendance spend!
As night the life-inclining stars best shows,
So lives obscure the starriest souls disclose.
Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night,
Brother to Death, in silent darkness born.
What doth gravity out of his bed at midnight?
Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,
So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone,
Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night,
And would have told him half his Troy was burnt.
We have heard the chimes at midnight.
The hum of either army stilly sounds,
That the fixed sentinels almost receive
The secret whispers of each other's watch;
Fire answers fire, and through their paly flames
Each battle sees the other's umbered face;
Steed threatens steed, in high and boastful neighs
Piercing the night's dull ear, and from the tents
The armourers, accomplishing the knights,
With busy hammers closing rivets up,
Give dreadful note of preparation.
Winding up days with toil and nights with sleep.
Except I be by Sylvia in the night,
There is no music in the nightingale.
Hung be the heavens with black, yield day to night!
O, I have passed a miserable night,
So full of ugly sights, of ghastly dreams,
That, as I am a Christian faithful man,
I would not spend another such a night,
Though 't were to buy a world of happy days.
By the apostle Paul, shadows to-night
Have struck more terror to the soul of Richard
Than can the substance of ten thousand soldiers.
It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear.
How silver-sweet sound lovers' tongues by night,
Like softest music to attending ears!
Good night, good night! parting is such sweet sorrow,
That I shall say good night till it be morrow.
When he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night,
And pay no worship to the garish sun.
Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain-tops.
Let me have men about me that are fat,
Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights:
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.
The deep of night is crept upon our talk,
And nature must obey necessity.
Sleep shall neither night nor day
Hang upon his pent-house lid.
