Somme

“ All that we are shown is a vision of morning when the air is still dim with the mist that drifts up slowly from the valleys to melt before the rising sun, which is still low down on the horizon, so that the trees cast only obscure shadows over the sloping fields. ”

“ At sunset, on such a day, as evening calmness settles down, weird mountain shadows begin to move across the dimly-lighted glens; and when darkness has fallen, there is a mystic stillness, broken only by the ceaseless throbbing of the sea-waves, the flow of brooks, and the voices of the night. ”

“ But, to come back to the larger things of the out-of-doors, you should see the mist some summer morning very early or some summer evening, sheeted and still over a winding stream or pond, especially in the evening when the sun has gone down behind the hill, the flame has faded from the sky, and over the rim of the circling slopes pours the soft, cool twilight, with a breeze as soft and cool, and a spirit that is prayer. ”

“ But although I have seen beautiful effects at all times of the day, those that I remember more than any others are the early mornings, when the sun was still low in the heavens, when, standing on that fine stretch of yellow sand, one seemed to breathe an atmosphere so pure, and to gaze at a sky so transparent, that some of those undefined longings for surroundings that have never been realized were instinctively uppermost in the mind. ”

“ In the evenings and early mornings, just at sunset and sunrise, when the School bell has called the boys to their silent worship, a silence strangely still and beautiful seems to surround the place; and in the early hours of the morning, long before the peep of light in the east, the stillness is so intense that it seems as if time has held its breath in the expectation of the daily wonder of the sunrise. ”

“ A red light burns far off upon the gloom of the land, and the night is soft and warm. We drag at the oars with aching arms, and suddenly a puff of wind, a puff faint and tepid and laden with strange odors of blossoms, of aromatic wood, comes out of the still night—the first sigh of the East on my face. ”

“ Your slumber, haunted by some last night's whisper 'fairy sound,' is broken by the chiming of the little French clock, which, by waking you to the music of some favourite waltz, adds the midnight pleasures of memory to the morning pleasures of hope. ”

“ When noontide has passed, and the weary day has driven her team to their western stalls, the fires of heaven rise from the East, moving in their accustomed path, they ascend and descend the skiey hill. When their course is fulfilled, the dial begins to cast westward an uncertain shadow; the eye-lids of day are opened, and birds and flowers, the startled vegetation, and fresh breeze awaken; the sun at length appears, and in majestic procession climbs the capitol of heaven. All proceeds, changes and dies, except the sense of misery in my bursting heart. ”

“ Presently the giant grey shadow, or wall of night, rises slowly in the east; the blazonry of evening waxes faint and wan in the west, and without a shade of 'gloaming;' for here night comes on with a single stride, earth looks old and pallid and cold—alt, kalt und ungestalt—the spectre of her former self. ”

“ By eight o'clock the misty clouds disperse, and it turns out a pleasant, calm, and springlike morning. The water, going down, but still spread far over the meadows, is seen from the window perfectly smooth and full of reflections. What lifts and lightens and makes heaven of earth is the fact that you see the reflection of the humblest weed against the sky, but you cannot put your head low enough to see the substance so. The reflection enchants us, just as an echo does. ”

“ Out on the hills, the still dawn must be stepping softly so as not to waken the world too soon ... soft, sandalled feet among the snow-set flowers....
The mere thought of it was sufficient to rouse him thoroughly. He rose, passed to the window, and thrust his young body into the chill air of dawn. All shadow! A deeper shadow in the valley, a lighter shadow in the encircling hills, and above it all the clear, grey, pellucid shadow of the sky. ”

“ By what way is the light parted in the morning, when, in an instant, it shoots itself into all the parts of the air above the horizon, as if the morning light flew upon the wings of an east wind, so swiftly, so strongly, is it carried, scattering the darkness of the night, as the east wind does the clouds? ”

“ It is a strange beginning, a gentle breath of the morning air greets us from the rocky walls in the deep, and brings confused noises from below. That is a signal for all who did not like to ascend so high, without beholding the sunrise. ”

“ The shadows of the tall churches grew longer and longer, until they touched the horizon and mingled in the universal shadow; and then, slow, and soft, and wrapping the world in fold after fold of deepening blue, came the night—the night at first obscurely simple, and then with faint points here and there, and then jewelled in darkling splendour with a hundred thousand lights. ”

“ If, on a morning in spring, we behold the ridges of a fresh-turned ploughed field from their northern side, our eyes, catching only the shadowed slopes of the successive furrows, see an expanse of white, the unmelted remains of the night's hail-storm, or the hoarfrost of the dawn. ”

“ Then as the spring drew near, if, indeed, such a word as spring be at all applicable to an abode of utter dreariness, a faint twilight would be just discernible. The illuminated portion of the sky would move round and round the horizon each twenty-four hours, gradually becoming more and more conspicuous, until at last the edge of the sun appeared. ”

“ The sighing summer-wind forgets to blow.
As sinks the day-star in the rosy West,
The silent wave, with rich reflection glows:
Alas! can tranquil nature give me rest,
Or scenes of beauty sooth me to repose? ”

“ On a calm, hot day, when the air near the surface of the ground is seen to quiver in the sunlight: The summer-colt rides, or: The summer-goose flackers; the Northern Lights are the Merry Dancers; heavy masses of fleecy white cloud are Wool-packs, or they are the Shepherd’s Flock. The evening star becomes the Shepherd’s Lamp, whilst the moon, more prosaically, does duty as the Parish Lantern. ”

“ In Sunset's Hour.
When failing light bespeak the night
⁠And her early sway,
When silver moon amid the gloom
⁠Blends with each golden ray;
'Tis when the softest amber clouds
⁠Shun a silver gleam,
'Tis when they wear a ruddier robe
⁠Caught from a passing beam. ”

“ Dawn and noon and sunset are one before thy face.
City lulled asleep by the chime of passing years,
Sweeter smiles thy rest than the radiance round thy peers;
Only love and lovely remembrance here have place.
Time on thee lies lighter than music on men's ears;
Dawn and noon and sunset are one before thy face. ”

“ But as the perfect day approaches, its morning light discovers the dark and straggling clouds, which at first skirted the horizon, assembling as at a signal, and as they expand and multiply, rolling slowly onward to the zenith, till, at last, the whole heavens, if we except a faint glimmering in the East, are overshadowed. ”

“ But for the atmosphere, sunshine would burst on us, and fail us at once, and at once remove us from midnight darkness to the blaze of noon. We should [Pg 500] have no twilight to soften, and beautify the landscape; no clouds to shade us from the scorching heat, but the bald earth, as it revolved on its axis, would turn its tanned and weakened front to the full and unmitigated rays of the lord of day. ”

“ By the dispersive powers of this medium, sunlight is converted into daylight; and instead of unbearable, parallel rays illuminating brilliantly, and scorching up with heat those parts upon which they directly fall, leaving all other parts in the darkness of night, we enjoy the blessings of a diffusion of its rays, and experience the beauties of soft shades and slowly-deepening shadows. Without an atmosphere, the sun of the morning would burst upon us with unbearable brilliancy, and leave us suddenly, at the close of day, at once in utter darkness. ”

“ Then all at once summer returned, coming like a thief in the night, for when it was morning the sun rose in splendour and power in a sky without a cloud on its vast azure expanse, on a calm sea with no motion but that scarcely perceptible rise and fall as of one that sleeps. ”

“ It is only at evening and morning that the rainbow is seen in perfection; for the banks of the river, and the steep precipice, shade the sun from the spray at the bottom of the fall in the middle of the day. ”

“ A passing sunbeam makes brilliant a white gable-end, and brings out the colours of the blossomed apple-tree beyond, and disappears. I see figures in the street, but hear them not. The hands on the church clock seem always pointing to one hour. Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine. ”

“ The morning, which is the most memorable season of the day, is the awakening hour. Then there is least somnolence in us; and for an hour, at least, some part of us awakes which slumbers all the rest of the day and night. ”

“ When the morning dawns she falls into a heavy, unrefreshing slumber, and wakes not until noon, tired, and unfit for the duties of the day! Night after night—gas, crowded rooms, carbonic acid gas, late hours, wine, and excitement are her portion. ”

“ In the summer season, as the operations of domestic life are mostly performed in the open air, every kind of noise is heard. At night, all sleep on the tops of their houses, their beds being spread upon their terraces, without any other covering over head than the vault of heaven. ”

“ In this latitude the sun goes down at night, and we retire to our couches and sleep. In the morning the sun returns, and we arise to the pursuit of our various daily avocations. But there, in the spring, the sun never sets. There is no morning and no night. ”

“ What an immeasurable interval there is between the first tinge of moonlight which we detect, lighting with mysterious, silvery, poetic light the western slopes, like a paler grass, and the last wave of daylight on the eastern slopes! It is wonderful how our senses ever span so vast an interval, how from being aware of the one we become aware of the other. ”

“ How pleasant to lie awake and listen to the cheery peal, while the old city is asleep at midnight, or waking up rosy at sunrise, or basking in noon, or swept by the scudding rain which drives in gusts over the broad places, and the great shining river ”

“ The roar of the sea is generally lower in the evening than in the day, the slumbrous light of the moon seems to lull the restless billows, and their song is one of repose. Sometimes I go to a little distance inland, and listen to the whispering of the maize in the evening breeze—a quiet, soothing sound! ”

“ The long, northern summer twilight had faded at last, and there was darkness clinging about the old walls. Deep shadows without edges lay about us, and clear skies that lit us dimly without rays of light drew our eyes to the skyline of the moors high above us on either side of the valley. ”

“ Nothing, in fact, can equal the beauty of the northern summer's evening and night, if night it may be called that only wants the glare of day, the full light which frequently seems so impertinent, for I could write at midnight very well without a candle. ”

“ The sun was then passing through the autumnal equinox, that is to say, the day and night were of equal length all over the world. These successive alternations of light and darkness were hailed with delight by the inhabitants of the fort. It is easier to sleep in the absence of the sun, and darkness refreshes and strengthens the eyes, weary with the unchanging brightness of several months of daylight. ”

“ Unlighted chambers of the night we kneel,
And, emptied of the day, contrite, alone,
The presence of some sentient Power within
The magnitudes of space we dimly feel
To which the finite spirit is akin. ”

“ The midsummer clouds were piling up upon the south horizon,
Mountains of drifting translucence in the larkspur-fields of the sky:
Ascending and toppling in crumbled ravines, dribbling down chasms
of silence,
Reassembling in crowded multitudes, massive forms one above another. ”

“ The drowsy heat of the afternoon invites to slumber as the cool hours before the noon of night invite to music, reverie, or sentimental conversation, and our midsummer-night dreams would be no worse for a moonlight ramble on the mountains or in the garden-suburbs of a large city. ”

“ Thoughts, which day turns into smoke and mist, stand about us in the night as lights and flames: even as the column which fluctuates above the crater of Vesuvius, in the daytime appears a pillar of cloud, but by night a pillar of fire. ”

“ A slight breeze with a mingling of sea, and pine, and the subtle scents of Spring in it, was coming up the Sound, and beneath its breath the water was rippling into wavelets, each with a touch of sun on its tiny crest. ”

“ As the morning light comes in through- 81 - the windows, it is strange to see the effect of diffused daylight, electricity, and gas—the bluish light of early morning reflected on the flesh tones—upon nearly three thousand girls and students in costumes one might expect to see in a bacchanalian feast, just before the fall of Rome. ”

“ An old sundial relentlessly indicates the slow dragging hours. But the deep blue heaven, in which a pair of larks poise exulting, looks in across the wall, from which a scrubby growth climbs shivering in the breeze. ”