Quotes
Quotes about Darkness
The Lord descended from above
And bow'd the heavens high;
And underneath his feet he cast
The darkness of the sky.
On cherubs and on cherubims
Full royally he rode;
And on the wings of all the winds
Came flying all abroad.
Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night,
Brother to Death, in silent darkness born.
And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,
The instruments of darkness tell us truths,
Win us with honest trifles, to betray's
In deepest consequence.
The prince of darkness is a gentleman.
Swift as a shadow, short as any dream;
Brief as the lightning in the collied night,
That in a spleen unfolds both heaven and earth,
And ere a man hath power to say, "Behold!"
The jaws of darkness do devour it up:
So quick bright things come to confusion.
Yet from those flames
No light, but rather darkness visible.
How sweetly did they float upon the wings
Of silence through the empty-vaulted night,
At every fall smoothing the raven down
Of darkness till it smil'd!
The prince of darkness is a gentleman.
The knell, the shroud, the mattock, and the grave,
The deep damp vault, the darkness and the worm.
Religion blushing, veils her sacred fires,
And unawares Morality expires.
Nor public flame nor private dares to shine;
Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine!
Lo! thy dread empire Chaos is restor'd,
Light dies before thy uncreating word;
Thy hand, great Anarch, lets the curtain fall,
And universal darkness buries all.
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
Melt and dispel, ye spectre-doubts, that roll
Cimmerian darkness o'er the parting soul!
A sense of duty pursues us ever. It is omnipresent, like the Deity. If we take to ourselves the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, duty performed or duty violated is still with us, for our happiness or our misery. If we say the darkness shall cover us, in the darkness as in the light our obligations are yet with us.
Brightest and best of the sons of the morning,
Dawn on our darkness, and lend us thine aid.
Thou art gone to the grave; but we will not deplore thee,
Though sorrows and darkness encompass the tomb.
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.
Everywhere the human soul stands between a hemisphere of light and another of darkness on the confines of two everlasting hostile empires,--Necessity and Free Will.
The day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.
Ships that pass in the night and speak each other in passing;
Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness;
So on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another,
Only a look and a voice; then darkness again and a silence.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dreamed before.
The great world's altar-stairs,
That slope through darkness up to God.
Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand!
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be!
When awful darkness and silence reign
Over the great Gromboolian plain,
Through the long, long wintry nights;
For I say this is death and the sole death,--
When a man's loss comes to him from his gain,
Darkness from light, from knowledge ignorance,
And lack of love from love made manifest.
Fear death?--to feel the fog in my throat,
The mist in my face.
.......
No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers,
The heroes of old;
Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears
Of pain, darkness, and cold.
