Quotes
Quotes about Night
The nightmare Life-in-Death was she.
A noise like of a hidden brook
In the leafy month of June,
That to the sleeping woods all night
Singeth a quiet tune.
The knight's bones are dust,
And his good sword rust;
His soul is with the saints, I trust.
It sounds like stories from the laud of spirits
If any man obtains that which he merits,
Or any merit that which he obtains.
. . . . . . . . .
Greatness and goodness are not means, but ends!
Hath he not always treasures, always friends,
The good great man? Three treasures,--love and light,
And calm thoughts, regular as infants' breath;
And three firm friends, more sure than day and night,--
Himself, his Maker, and the angel Death.
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:
In full-orbed glory, yonder moon divine
Rolls through the dark blue depths;
Beneath her steady ray
The desert circle spreads
Like the round ocean, girdled with the sky.
How beautiful is night!
Oh, when a mother meets on high
The babe she lost in infancy,
Hath she not then for pains and fears,
The day of woe, the watchful night,
For all her sorrow, all her tears,
An over-payment of delight?
Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes
May weep, but never see,
A night of memories and of sighs
I consecrate to thee.
The meteor flag of England
Shall yet terrific burn,
Till danger's troubled night depart,
And the star of peace return.
Fly not yet; 't is just the hour
When pleasure, like the midnight flower
That scorns the eye of vulgar light,
Begins to bloom for sons of night
And maids who love the moon.
Oh stay! oh stay!
Joy so seldom weaves a chain
Like this to-night, that oh 't is pain
To break its links so soon.
And the best of all ways
To lengthen our days
Is to steal a few hours from the night, my dear.
Thus, when the lamp that lighted
The traveller at first goes out,
He feels awhile benighted,
And looks around in fear and doubt.
But soon, the prospect clearing,
By cloudless starlight on he treads,
And thinks no lamp so cheering
As that light which Heaven sheds.
Oft in the stilly night,
Ere slumber's chain has bound me,
Fond memory brings the light
Of other days around me;
The smiles, the tears,
Of boyhood's years,
The words of love then spoken;
The eyes that shone
Now dimmed and gone,
The cheerful hearts now broken.
'T was the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring,--not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there.
Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace.
My native land, good night!
There was a sound of revelry by night,
And Belgium's capital had gather'd then
Her beauty and her chivalry, and bright
The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men.
A thousand hearts beat happily; and when
Music arose with its voluptuous swell,
Soft eyes look'd love to eyes which spake again,
And all went merry as a marriage bell.
The sky is changed,--and such a change! O night
And storm and darkness! ye are wondrous strong,
Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light
Of a dark eye in woman! Far along,
From peak to peak, the rattling crags among,
Leaps the live thunder.
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which Heaven to gaudy day denies.
It is the hour when from the boughs
The nightingale's high note is heard;
It is the hour when lovers' vows
Seem sweet in every whisper'd word.
So we 'll go no more a-roving
So late into the night.
Then black despair,
The shadow of a starless night, was thrown
Over the world in which I moved alone.
The desire of the moth for the star,
Of the night for the morrow,
The devotion to something afar
From the sphere of our sorrow.
The cold winds swept the mountain-height,
And pathless was the dreary wild,
And 'mid the cheerless hours of night
A mother wandered with her child:
As through the drifting snows she press'd,
The babe was sleeping on her breast.
Abide with me from morn till eve,
For without Thee I cannot live;
Abide with me when night is nigh,
For without Thee I dare not die.
