The day is fled, and dismal night descends, Casting her sable arms around the world, And folding all within her deadly grasp.
This dead of night, this silent hour of darkness; Nature for rest ordain'd, and soft repose.
The drowsy night grows on the world, and now The busy craftsmen, and o'erlabour'd hind Forget the travail of the day in sleep : Care only wakes, and moping pensiveness; With meagre discontented looks they sit, And watch the wasting of the midnight taper.
Rowe's Jane Shore, a. 2. s. 1.
The setting sun descends
Swift to the western waves; and guilty night, Hasty to spread her horror o'er the world,
Thou lend'st thy ready veil to ev'ry treason, And teeming mischiefs thrive beneath thy shade.
The night look'd black, and boding darkness fell Precipitate and heavy o'er the world;
At once extinguishing the sun.
How those fall'n leaves do rustle on the path,
With whisp'ring noise, as tho' the earth around me Did utter secret things!
The distant river too, bears to mine ear
A dismal wailing. O mysterious night!
Thou art not silent; many tongues hast thou.
Joanna Baillie's De Monfort, a. 5, s. 1.
The stars are forth, the moon above the tops Of the snow-shining mountains.-Beautiful! I linger yet with nature, for the night Hath been to me a more familiar face Than that of man; and in her starry shade Of dim and solitary loveliness,
I learn'd the language of another world.
Byron's Manfred, a. 3, s. 4. All is gentle nought
Stirs rudely; but congenial with the night, Whatever walks is gliding like a spirit.
Byron's Doge of Venice, a. 4, s. 1.
How sweet and soothing is this hour of calm! I thank thee, night! for thou hast chased away These horrid bodements which, amidst the throng, I could not dissipate and with the blessing Of thy benign and quiet influence- Now will I to my couch, although to rest Is almost wronging such a night as this.
Now glow'd the firmament With livid sapphires: Hesperus, that led The starry host, rode brightest, till the moon Rising in clouded majesty, at length Apparent queen unveil'd her peerless light, And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.
Milton's Paradise Lost, b. 4.
Now came still evening on, and twilight grey Had in her sober livery all things clad : Silence accompanied; for beast and bird, They to their grassy couch, these to their nests Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale.
Why sleep'st thou Eve? now is the pleasant time, The cool, the silent, save where silence yields To the night-warbling bird, that now awake,
Tunes sweetest his love-labour'd song; now reigns Full-orb'd the moon, and with more pleasing light Shadowy sets-off the face of things; in vain,
Milton's Paradise Lost, b. 5.
The sun was sunk, and after him the star Of Hesperus, whose office is to bring Twilight upon the earth, short arbiter
'Twixt day and night, and now from end to end Night's hemisphere had veil'd th' horizon round.
Night with her sullen wings to double-shade
The desert; fowls in their clay nests were couch'd; And now wild beasts came forth the woods to roam. Milton's Paradise Regained, b. 1.
Night, sable goddess! from her ebon throne, In rayless majesty, now stretches forth Her leaden sceptre o'er a slumb'ring world. Silence, how dead! and darkness, how profound! Nor eye, nor list'ning ear, an object finds; Creation sleeps. 'Tis as the gen'ral pulse Of life stood still, and nature made a pause; An awful pause! prophetic of her end.
Young's Night Thoughts, n. 1.
How is night's sable mantle labour'd o'er, How richly wrought with attributes divine!
What wisdom shines! what love! This midnight
This gorgeous arch, with golden worlds inlay'd!
Built with divine ambition.
This sacred shade, and solitude, what is it?
'Tis the felt presence of the Deity.
Few are the faults we flatter when alone,
Vice sinks in her allurements, is ungilt, And looks, like other objects, black by night. By night an atheist half-believes a God.
Young's Night Thoughts, n. 5.
Let Indians, and the gay, like Indians, fond Of feather'd fopperies, the sun adore : Darkness has more divinity for me;
It strikes thought inward; it drives back the soul To settle on herself, our point supreme! There lies our theatre; there sits our judge. Darkness the curtain drops o'er life's dull scene; 'Tis the kind hand of Providence stretcht out 'Twixt man and vanity: tis reason's reign, And virtue's too; these tutelary shades Are man's asylum from the tainted throng. Night is the good man's friend, and guardian too; It no less rescues virtue, than inspires.
By day, the soul, o'erborne by life's career, Stunn'd by the din, and giddy with the glare, Reels far from reason, jostled by the throng.
How, like a widow in her weeds, the night, Amid her glimmering tapers, silent sits! How sorrowful, how desolate, she weeps Perpetual dews, and saddens nature's scene!
See crimes gigantic, stalking through the gloom With front erect, that hide their head by day, And making night still darker by their deeds. Slumbering in covert, till the shades descend, Rapine and murder, link'd, now prowl for prey. Ibid.
Now black, and deep, the night begins to fall, A shade immense. Sunk in the quenching gloom, Magnificent and vast, are heaven and earth.
Order confounded lies; all beauty void; Distinction lost; and gay variety
One universal blot: such the fair power Of light, to kindle and create the whole.
Thomson's Seasons-Autumn.
As yet 'tis midnight deep. The weary clouds, Slow-meeting, mingle into solid gloom. Now, while the drowsy world lies lost in sleep, Let me associate with the serious night, And contemplation her sedate compeer; Let me shake off the intrusive cares of day, And lay the meddling senses all aside.
In sable pomp, with all her starry train, The night resumed her throne.
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-orb'd 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! Southey's Thalaba, b.1.
Now was the noon of night; and all was still, Save where the centinel paced on his rounds Humming a broken song. Along the camp High flames the frequent fire. The warrior Franks, On the hard earth extended, rest their limbs Fatigued, their spears lay by them, and the shield Pillow'd the helm'd head: secure they slept, And busy fancy in her dream renewed The fight of yesterday.
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