Quotes
Quotes about Night
The wind that sighs before the dawn
Chases the gloom of night,
The curtains of the East are drawn,
And suddenly--'t is light.
The victories of Right
Are born of strife.
There were no Day were there no Night,
Nor, without dying, Life.
A little work, a little play
To keep us going--and so good-day!
A little warmth, a little light
Of love's bestowing--and so, good-night.
A little fun, to match the sorrow
Of each day's growing--and so, good-morrow!
A little trust that when we die
We reap our sowing--and so--good-bye!
Earth, left silent by the wind of night,
Seems shrunken 'neath the gray unmeasured height.
O little town of Bethlehem,
How still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by;
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting Light;
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee to-night.
The summer day was spoiled with fitful storm;
At night the wind died and the soft rain dropped;
With lulling murmur, and the air was warm,
And all the tumult and the trouble stopped.
Bend low, O dusky Night,
And give my spirit rest,
Hold me to your deep breast,
And put old cares to flight.
Give back the lost delight
That once my soul possest,
When Love was loveliest.
Somewhere--in desolate wind-swept space--
In Twilight-land--in No-man's land--
Two hurrying Shapes met face to face,
And bade each other stand.
"And who are you?" cried one, agape,
Shuddering in the gloaming light.
"I know not," said the second Shape,
"I only died last night."
Before the beginning of years
There came to the making of man
Time with a gift of tears,
Grief with a glass that ran,
Pleasure with pain for leaven,
Summer with flowers that fell,
Remembrance fallen from heaven,
And Madness risen from hell,
Strength without hands to smite,
Love that endures for a breath;
Night, the shadow of light,
And Life, the shadow of death.
And lo, between the sundawn and the sun
His day's work and his night's work are undone:
And lo, between the nightfall and the light,
He is not, and none knoweth of such an one.
O white and midnight sky, O starry bath,
Wash me in thy pure, heavenly crystal flood:
Cleanse me, ye stars, from earthly soil and scath--
Let not one taint remain in spirit or blood!
The tasks are done and the tears are shed.
Yesterday's errors let yesterday cover;
Yesterday's wounds, which smarted and bled,
Are healed with the healing that night has shed.
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer, quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.
Wynken, Blynken and Nod one night
Sailed off in a wooden shoe--
Sailed on a river of crystal light
Into a sea of dew.
? John Bartlett, compEngland's sun was slowly setting o'er the hill-tops far away,
Filling all the land with beauty at the close of one sad day;
And its last rays kissed the forehead of a man and maiden fair,--
He with footsteps slow and weary; she with sunny, floating hair;
He with bowed head, sad and thoughtful; she with lips so cold and white,
Struggled to keep back the murmur, "Curfew must not ring to-night."
One naked star has waded through
The purple shadows of the night,
And faltering as falls the dew
It drips its misty light.
? John Bartlett, compThe Night has a thousand eyes,
And the Day but one;
Yet the light of the bright world dies
With the dying sun.
The mind has a thousand eyes,
And the heart but one;
Yet the light of a whole life dies
When love is done.
If I should die to-night
And you should come in deepest grief and woe--
And say:--"Here's that ten dollars that I owe,"
I might arise in my large white cravat
And say, "What's that?"
I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
The East and the West in the spring of the world shall blend
As a man and a woman that plight
Their troth in the warm spring night.
Hark, below, the many-voiced earth,
The chanting of the old religious trees,
Rustle of far-off waters, woven sounds
Of small and multitudinous lives awake,
Peopling the grasses and the pools with joy,
Uttering their meaning to the mystic night!
So 'ere's to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, at your 'ome in the Soudan;
You're a pore benighted 'eathen but a first-class fightin' man.
Twilight, a timid fawn, went glimmering by,
And Night, the dark-blue hunter, followed fast.
O star on the breast of the river!
O marvel of bloom and grace!
Did you fall right down from heaven,
Out of the sweetest place?
You are white as the thoughts of an angel,
Your heart is steeped in the sun;
Did you grow in the Golden City,
My pure and radiant one?"
"Nay, nay, I fell not out of heaven;
None gave me my saintly white;
It slowly grew from the darkness,
Down in the dreary night.
From the ooze of the silent river,
I win my glory and grace,
White souls fall not, O my poet,
They rise to the sweetest place."
