Quotes
Quotes about Night
So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan which moves
To that mysterious realm where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one that wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
When Freedom from her mountain-height
Unfurled her standard to the air,
She tore the azure robe of night,
And set the stars of glory there.
She mingled with its gorgeous dyes
The milky baldric of the skies,
And striped its pure, celestial white
With streakings of the morning light.
Flag of the free heart's hope and home!
By angel hands to valour given!
Thy stars have lit the welkin dome,
And all thy hues were born in heaven.
Forever float that standard sheet!
Where breathes the foe but falls before us,
With Freedom's soil beneath our feet,
And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us?
Those green-robed senators of mighty woods,
Tall oaks, branch-charmed by the earnest stars,
Dream, and so dream all night without a stir.
In a drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy tree,
Thy branches ne'er remember
Their green felicity.
Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art--
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores.
Note 1.See Chapman, Quotation 20.
Among the many things he has requested of me to-night, this is the principal,--that on his gravestone shall be this inscription.--Richard Monckton Milnes (Lord Houghton): Life, Letters, and Literary Remains of John Keats. Letter to Severn, vol. ii. p. 91.
Mournfully, oh, mournfully,
The midnight wind doth sigh,
Like some sweet plaintive melody
Of ages long gone by.
She wore a wreath of roses
The first night that we met.
Oh pilot, 't is a fearful night!
There's danger on the deep.
We watched her breathing through the night,
Her breathing soft and low,
As in her breast the wave of life
Kept heaving to and fro.
A wife who preaches in her gown,
And lectures in her night-dress.
To me, through every season dearest;
In every scene, by day, by night,
Thou, present to my mind appearest
A quenchless star, forever bright;
My solitary sole delight:
Where'er I am, by shore, at sea,
I think of thee.
Tho' lost to sight, to memory dear
Thou ever wilt remain;
One only hope my heart can cheer,--
The hope to meet again.
Oh, fondly on the past I dwell,
And oft recall those hours
When, wandering down the shady dell,
We gathered the wild-flowers.
Yes, life then seemed one pure delight,
Tho' now each spot looks drear;
Yet tho' thy smile be lost to sight,
To memory thou art dear.
Oft in the tranquil hour of night,
When stars illume the sky,
I gaze upon each orb of light,
And wish that thou wert by.
I think upon that happy time,
That time so fondly loved,
When last we heard the sweet bells chime,
As thro' the fields we roved.
Meet me by moonlight alone,
And then I will tell you a tale
Must be told by the moonlight alone,
In the grove at the end of the vale!
You must promise to come, for I said
I would show the night-flowers their queen.
Nay, turn not away that sweet head,
'T is the loveliest ever was seen.
Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,
Lead thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home--
Lead thou me on!
Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene,--one step enough for me.
Tell him I lingered alone on the shore,
Where we parted, in sorrow, to meet nevermore;
The night-wind blew cold on my desolate heart
But colder those wild words of doom,--"Ye must part."
Enchantress of the stormy seas,
Priestess of Night's high mysteries.
The summer skies are darkly blue,
The days are still and bright,
And Evening trails her robes of gold
Through the dim halls of Night.
Raven from the dim dominions
On the Night's Plutonian shore,
Oft I hear thy dusky pinions
Wave and flutter round my door--
See the shadow of thy pinions
Float along the moonlit floor.
He stood beside a cottage lone
And listened to a lute,
One summer's eve, when the breeze was gone,
And the nightingale was mute.
Sparkling and bright in liquid light
Does the wine our goblets gleam in;
With hue as red as the rosy bed
Which a bee would choose to dream in.
Then fill to-night, with hearts as light
To loves as gay and fleeting
As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim
And break on the lips while meeting.
Ye quenchless stars! so eloquently bright,
Untroubled sentries of the shadowy night.
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.
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.
The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they while their companions slept
Were toiling upward in the night.
