Daylight

“ This cool morning light, this half-daylight that precedes the rising of the sun, is the aurora or morning twilight. In the meantime a lark, the joy of the fields, takes wing to the highest clouds, like a rocket, and is the first to salute the awakening day. It mounts and mounts, always singing, as if to get in front of the sun ”

“ So, growing brighter as the daylight grows dim and the gloaming thickens to the mirk, and paling again as daylight creeps slowly back upon the world, but always bright in the diurnal twilight of the woods, the camp-fire weaves and breaks its magic spells, now leaping, now lapsing, as its own freaks move it. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As daylight widens, successive groups of mottled and rosy-bosomed clouds assemble on the gilded sphere, and, crowned with wreaths of fickle rainbows, spread a mirrored flush over hill, grove, and lake, and every village spire is burnished with their splendor.
At length, through crimsoned vapors, we behold the sun's broad disk, rising with a countenance so serene that every eye may view him ere he arrays himself in his meridian brightness. Not many people who live in towns are aware of the pleasure attending a ramble near the woods and orchards at daybreak in the early part of summer. ”

“ And ocean gleaming in the light of morn."
Again, again, O watcher on the tower!
We thirst for daylight, and we bide the hour,
Patient, but longing. Tell us, shall it be
A bright, calm, glorious daylight for the free?
"I hope, but cannot tell; I hear a song,
Vivid as day itself, and clear and strong,
As of a lark—young prophet of the noon—
Pouring in sunlight his seraphic tune." ”

“ The sunshine and the shadow lengthen with the dying day,
And, like a dream, the daylight vanishes from earth away.
The western sky is covered with a web of beauty spun
By fairy hands, and woven from the life-tide of the sun. ”

“ When daylight was once established there was no more real night, though the sun made thirty-seven more and more shallow dips below the horizon before rising spirally through the heavens in perpetual day. ”

“ To the vast public, the autumn morning is only a sort of stage background against which they can display their own mechanical importance. But to some men still the trees stand up and look around at the daylight, having woven the two ends of darkness together into visible being and presence. ”

“ Yes; this wonderful "ball of light"—so bright that the brightest light we know of looks dull when held up before its dazzling face—is ever, night and day, sending out rays of light and heat, like streams from an overflowing fountain, always making daylight somewhere. When you lie down in your bed, and settle yourself to sleep sound till morning, your little cousins in Australia and New Zealand are just beginning to sit up in theirs, and to rub their eyes, and think it will soon be breakfast time; and in the evening, when their day is done, yours will be just beginning again. ”

“ Two or three days more might have been pleasantly passed among its grand precipices, its winding straits, its remains of a remote and rude antiquity, its little horses, little cows, and little sheep, its sea-fowl, its larks, its flowers, and its hardy and active people. There was an amusing novelty also in going to bed, as we did, by daylight, for at this season of the year, the daylight is never out of the sky, and the flush of early sunset only passes along the horizon from the northwest to the northeast, where it brightens into sunrise. ”

“ I speak especially of the moment before the sun sinks, when his light turns pure rose-colour, and when this light falls upon a zenith covered with countless cloud-forms of inconceivable delicacy, threads and flakes of vapour, which would in common daylight be pure snow-white, and which give, therefore, fair field to the tone of light. ”

“ Daylight's keen eyes took in every thing. The clearing was irregular, following the patches of the best soil, and every fruit tree and berry bush, and even each vegetable plant, had the water personally conducted to it. ”

“ After a still winter night I awoke with the impression that some question had been put to me, which I had been endeavoring in vain to answer in my sleep, as what—how—when—where? But there was dawning Nature, in whom all creatures live, looking in at my broad windows with serene and satisfied face, and no question on her lips. I awoke to an answered question, to Nature and daylight. ”

“ Daylight is a personage quite apart from the sun, who is merely that old Sas who fought with Tulchuherris, and who travels through the sky every day from east to west in utter loneliness. He carries that glowing torch which we see as he moves on his way through the sky ”

“ Between the dark and the daylight,
When the night is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day's occupations,
That is known as the Children's Hour. ”

“ It is becoming customary to use the daylight as much as possible at all social functions; and, indeed, at no affair, unless it be very late in the afternoon and very ceremonious, is the daylight excluded and the candles and chandeliers lighted. ”

“ Be the night however weary, and watching long, the morning comes at last:—thus it was now with the miners of Minturne Creek.
Daylight is a wonderful panacea for those gloomy thoughts and anxieties which are nourished and magnified during the dark hours of the night ”

“ While weary eyes are watching the East, daylight comes over the sea. Five years have passed away, and though the time seemed long as an Arctic winter, that only made more bright the rising of the sun. ”

“ As the hours of daylight in the winter months in these high latitudes are so few, we generally roused ourselves up several hours before daylight. Often my kind-hearted men endeavoured to get up first, and have a rousing fire made and breakfast cooked, before I would awake. ”

“ Speaking roughly, sunset may be described as an almost instantaneous loss of full sunlight; and the gradual loss of daylight is noticeable even at such short intervals as from one five minutes to another. ”

“ Evidently the inhabitants had all gone to bed early on account of the darkness. In this part of the country this time of year it is broad daylight always during fair weather, and a cloudy evening offers an excellent chance to catch up on one’s lost sleep. ”

“ Come again, come again.
[Pg 59]
Daylight is on the Sea. Copied by permission of Firth, Pond & Co., 547 Broadway, N. Y., publishers of the music.
Daylight is on the sea!
Love, do not stay;
Land is no place for me,
I must away! ”

“ According to the almanac, we have only gained a few minutes morning and evening—scarcely enough, one would think, to make any impression—but one marks the lengthening afternoons at once. We seem to have gained half an hour of daylight at least. This is always the first pleasant change in the new year. ”

“ We must reach this village to-night, even though we run the danger of being caught and brought back, if we escape by daylight."
"What are you talking about? There is no daylight to-day. One can hardly see one's hand now, and in two hours it will be night." ”

“ By timing the hours of travel so that a start is secured before daylight, and halting by the middle of the afternoon, the rains are avoided, as they invariably fall between noon and sunset, except at the beginning of the season. ”

“ When daylight comes in the summer—and it’s often either as hot as hell or as cold as icicles in those places; but in summer, as soon as its light, if you turn down the coverlet, you’ll see them a-going it like Cheapside when it’s throngest. ”

“ Any way, and in any weather, I am sure of a good deal of pleasure before I come home. At that time of day, no wind is too keen: no darkness is gloomy: no rain is depressing. Moreover, the rainy mornings are few in comparison with the fair. In the very worst, the daylight does come, in some mode or other ”

“ Crawl out half-way at night before moonrise and get into touch with the chaps we send out. Blaze at 'em if they tried to shift, and so bag some of 'em in the daylight. Learn that patch of ground by heart, lie all day in squatty holes, and come on nearer next night. ”

“ Those in favor pointed to the benefits of increased daylight hours in the winter evening: more time for recreation, reduced lighting and heating demands, reduced crime, and reduced automobile accidents. ”

“ Daylight waxes and wanes from dawn to dark every day, and may be very dim on cloudy and rainy days. Artificial light, coming from generators, is not dimmed by clouds or other external conditions. Duration is controlled by a light switch, or a time clock. ”

“ Five hours’ work per day can be performed, even out-door, without discomfort from excessive heat, and three days out of seven during the whole of daylight, because of the frequent clouded state of the sky. ”

“ He looked at the daylight shadows of a yellow hue, dancing with the firelight shadows in blue on the whitewashed chimney corner, but there was nothing in shadows. ”

“ The firm substantial daylight things become ghostly and elusive, the hills beyond are a sea of unsubstantial texture, the world a visible spirit, the spiritual within us rises out of its darkness, loses something of its weight and body, and swims up towards heaven. This road that was a mere rutted white dust, hot underfoot, blinding to the eye, is now a soft grey silence, with the glitter of a crystal grain set starlike in its silver here and there. ”

“ Season-words yield a further hint of a northern Continental home, with a more or less humid climate in which the welcome change from the long ungenial winter was as the burst of sunshine through the cold and mist of a gloomy night, and the dawn of gladsome spring was merged in a too short summer day. Time was measured by the moon, of little service otherwise in that wolf-haunted forest-land, and therefore playing but a small part in primitive mythology. Day is the reign of divine, life-giving light, as night is the waning of Nature's powers in a death-like gloom. ”

“ The evening sun and aurora in the night, the sun and the verdant earth, which divests itself of its varicoloured attire in autumn, veil, cover, and lose themselves; their most vivid hues become obscure in the gloom of night, or are covered by the snow of winter; the hero becomes a dark-coloured dove, or a gloomy swan which crosses the waters. I have noted more than once how the night of the year corresponds to those of the day; the sun which hides itself in the night of evening, and the sun which veils itself in the night of winter, are often represented by the same mythical images. ”

“ In order to reproduce our four hours one would have to bring together the minutes from a hundred summer-houses and hunting-lodges, and even then the description would limp. Morning twilight is to the day what spring is to summer, evening twilight to the night, autumn to winter. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is there that he gazes upon the gorgeous sunset,—the evening star following with silvery lamp the fading day, or the moon showering her pale lustre through the balmy night air, with a fancy that kindles and soars into the heavens before him,—there, that we have all felt the charm of woods and green fields, and solitary boughs waving in the golden sunshine, or darkening in the melancholy beauty of evening shadows. ”

“ Not only does a rosy sunset presage fine weather, and a ruddy sunrise bad weather, but there are other tints which speak with equal clearness and accuracy. A bright yellow sky in the evening indicates wind; a pale yellow, wet; a neutral grey colour constitutes a favourable sign in the evening, an unfavourable one in the morning. The clouds, again, are full of meaning in themselves. If their forms are soft, undefined, and feathery, the weather will be fine; if their edges are hard, sharp, and defined, it will be foul. ”

“ There are three scenes to every day—morning, noon, and early evening—when the very actors themselves are changed. To one who has never been in the fields at daybreak, [Pg 54] the world is so new, so fresh and strange, as to seem like a different planet. And then the evening—the hour of dusk and the deeper, darker night! Go once this autumn into the woods at night. ”

“ The sky, grey in autumn, snowy in winter, and golden in spring, corresponds to the grey sky of evening, the silver one of night, and the golden one of morning. Spring is the dawn of the year; the primitive myth is but amplified; the last hour of the day awakens the aurora; the last month of the solar year awakens the spring. The application of the myth of the day to the year is one of the greatest simplicity. ”

“ To the luminous day succeeds the gloomy night, and then again to the dark night the luminous day; to summer succeeds winter, and to winter summer; to white black, and to black white; to heat cold, and to cold heat. ”

“ How softly does the Spring day gradually fold back its nun-veil, and the Earth grow bright, as if it were the morning of a Resurrection!--The quicksilver-pillar of the barometer, the guiding Fire-pillar of the weather-prophet, rests firmly on Fixlein's Ark of the Covenant. The Sun raises himself, pure and cool, into the morning-blue, instead of into the morning-red. ”