Evening

“ I love it so much that I am loath to confess that sometimes the evening light is even more beautiful. Yet is there a softness that comes with the close of day, a glorification of common things, a drawing of purple shadows over all that is rough or unsightly, which makes the early evening perhaps the most perfect time of all the perfect hours. ”

“ To every garden-bred child the sudden blossoming and pale shining in the gloaming have ever given the evening primrose a special tender interest,—a faintly mystic charm through the chill of falling dew and the dim light, and through a half-sad atmosphere which has always encircled the flower, and has been felt by many of the poets, making them seldom sing the evening primrose as a flower of happiness. ”

“ Yet another joy ere the evening, bright with songs and music, with cheerful converse and pleasant reminiscence, comes to an end. We sit amid the happy household group on the broad verandah-balcony, inhaling the cool night air, and watching the wondrous effects of light and shade produced by the late arisen moon. ”

“ Golden evening gave a refreshing coolness to the air, and picturesque shadows to the hills. It was a scene,—an hour,—when Nature imparts a quick and living enjoyment akin to the transports of love and the ecstacy of music—it touches a chord whose vibration is happiness. ”

“ Thus does a summer evening suggest idyllic thoughts, soothing even a restless mind with its assuagement, inducing even the soaring imagination to abide on earth with an indwelling yearning for home as the place from whence it came, and thus teaching the insatiable mind to be satisfied with little, by rendering one content; for in the evening hour time stands still and eternity lingers. ”

“ The evening is an emblem of autumn, and autumn of declining life. The night with its silence and darkness shows the winter, in which all the powers of vegetation are benumbed; and the winter points out the time when life shall cease, with its hopes and pleasures. ”

“ The light changes; the morning freshness becomes the grave and solid afternoon, and so dies into twilight; till out of the dark alleys steals the gentle evening, dark-eyed and with the evening star tangled in her hair, full of shy sweet virginal thoughts and mysteries ... ”

“ 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. ”

“ Delightful as such an evening must naturally be to all who have hearts awake to the influence of sweet sounds and lovely sights, how inexpressibly soothing must it seem to one who, languishing beneath the ungenial atmosphere of a northern region, and sighing for the bluer skies and softer breezes of his fatherland, feels himself at once transported, by the unusual aspect of the heavens, to the distant home of his regrets! ”

“ Evening does not drive us within doors, the nights are so enchanting. Day fades imperceptibly out. Even the stars seem disconcerted. One by one they peep, and then flit from view. We watch the slow mustering of the celestial host in silence. ”

“ The sleepy afternoons glide away, the sun droops, and the quiet, coloured evening falls solemnly. Then comes the hush of the huge and thoughtful night; the wan stars wash the dust with silver, and the brave day is over. ”

“ Were there no atmosphere, the evening sun would in a moment set, and without warning plunge the earth in darkness. But the air keeps in her hand a sheaf of his rays, and lets them slip slowly through her fingers; so that the shadows of evening gather by degrees, and the flowers have time to bow their heads, and each creature space to find a place of rest, and nestle to repose. ”

“ It is so pleasant to feel the excitement of an amusing evening fade away, by degrees, into a mood half thoughtful, half pensive, like the rich colours in the west, melting into the saddened softness of twilight. ”

“ I have driven there at all hours of the day—I cannot keep away—and I have seen them early in the morning, and at mid-day, and in the afternoon, and I have seen them in the evening by moonlight, when all the intensity was washed out of the colour and into the scent; but just as the sun drops behind the little hills is the supreme moment, when the splendour is so dazzling that you feel as though you must have reached the very gates of heaven. ”

“ A DULL SUNDAY
(After Debussy)
IT has been a long day,
A long, long day;
And now in floods of twilight,
In long green waves of sunset softly flowing,
Evening.
It is evening over the great towns,
It is evening in our hearts. ”

“ Be it not said, thought, understood —
Then it will be--good night.
To hearts which near each other move
From evening close to morning light,
The night is good; because, my love,
They never say good-night. ”

“ February 5, 1853 (seven o’clock in the morning) .—I am always astonished at the difference between one’s inward mood of the evening and that of the morning. The passions which are dominant in the evening, in the morning leave the field free for the contemplative part of the soul. Our whole being, irritated and overstrung by the nervous excitement of the day, arrives in the evening at the culminating point of its human vitality; the same being, tranquilized by the calm of sleep, is in the morning nearer heaven. ”

“ QUIET, and introspective calm come with the afternoon. Toward evening the mind grows satisfied and still. The flare and flicker of youth are gone, and the soul is like the flame of a lamp where the air is at rest. ”

“ In the morning, after the weary limbs have repaired their exhausted vigor by the indulgence of soft repose, we are pleased with the blessing of light; and, after a few fleeting hours engaged in our diversified pursuits of the day, we begin to court the evening shades, pleased again to enjoy that balmy retreat which alone refits us for the fatigues of the ensuing day. When a few fleeting hours are spent, the day is no longer gratifying; but its light becomes burdensome, and we wish for the shadows of the evening to be stretched over us. ”

“ He stood for a moment oblivious to everything: the evening bird fluttering among the rafters, the song of the nightingale without, the sighing wind in the tower entry, the rustics in the doorway, the group in the choir. Presently he became conscious of the words sung:
“A thousand ages in Thy sight Are like an evening gone; Short as the watch that ends the night Before the rising sun. “Time, like an ever-rolling stream, Bears all its sons away; They fly, forgotten, as a dream Dies at the opening day.” ”

“ It was as sweet and beautiful an evening in the early autumn as ever looked down with bright and cheerful smile from the calm heavens upon man’s hour of rest, what time the labor and the burthen of the day all past and over, he gathers round him his blythe household, and no more dreaming of anxiety or toil or sorrow, looks confidently forward to a secure night and happy morrow. ”

“ Smooth and far in the tranquil evening-air fall the receding notes, a clear, silvery sweetness; farther and farther in the hushed evening air, lessening and lowering, as you bend to listen, till the vanishing strain just cleaves, a single thread of pearl-pure melody, finer, finer, finer, through the dewy twilight, and—you hear only your own heart-beats. It is not dead, but risen. ”

“ The evening light, in our country hanging dubiously between the glare of noon and the darkness of midnight, invites to that condition of mind which lies between the intense alertness of day and the deep oblivion of sleep, and which seems the most favourable for the meditation of divine things. ”

“ 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 evening is comparable to old age; and on the other hand, the dawn of the morning resembles youth; the one full of comfort and hope, and then sad evening with its discouragement and tendencies to look on the dark side of things. But, just as the time of youth in life is very short and fleeting, so is the infancy of each new day, which quickly ages towards its evening. ”

“ 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! ”

“ We spend the afternoon in all the extacy of hope, that the most fervent love, exchanged by mutual vows, could inspire. The evening being far advanced I forced myself from the dear object of my flame, who indulged me in a tender embrace at parting, and then repaired to my lodgings. ”

“ A fine sand-dust enters through the jalousies from the streets, and fills the air of the room and covers everything. Evening is the only time of the day in which one can breathe at all freely, partly in the open air, partly in the airy galleries within the house, opening into the court. ”

“ THOSE EVENING BELLS.
by thomas moore.
Those evening bells! those evening bells!
How many a tale their music tells
Of youth, and home, and that sweet time
When last I heard their soothing chime.
Those joyous hours are passed away ”

“ I like a stormy evening occasionally. There is such a pleasant contrast between our cheerful room and the howling wind and beating rain outside, but I hope there is no one suffering, especially that little beggar girl. ”

“ Nothing escapes, nothing is free.”
52
Clear Evening
The crescent moon is large enough to linger
A little while after the twilight goes,
This moist midsummer night the garden perfumes
Are earth and apple, dewy pine and rose.
Over my head four new-cut stars are glinting
And the inevitable night draws on;
I am alone, the old terror takes me,
Evenings will come like this when I am gone;
Evenings on evenings, years on years forever—
Be taut, my spirit, close upon and keep
The scent, the brooding chill, the gliding fire-fly,
A poem learned before I fall asleep. ”

“ On the other hand, there is every evening a lavishly arranged sunset, like gratis fireworks, and each morning (I am credibly informed) a sunrise of which poets and energetic people are pleased to speak highly; while every year spring comes in, like a cosmical upholsterer, and refurnishes the entire place, and makes us glad to live. ”

“ The day is an epitome of the year. The night is the winter, the morning and evening are the spring and fall, and the noon is the summer. ”

“ As long as skies are blue, and fields are green,
Evening must usher night, night urge the morrow,
Month follow month with woe, and year wake year to sorrow. ”

“ Day, like a weary pilgrim, had reached the westerngate of Heaven, and Evening stooped down to unloose the latchets of his sandal-shoon. ”

“ The coolness of evening comes to condense the haze of noon and make the air transparent and the outline of objects firm and distinct, and chaste (chaste eve) ; even as I am made more vigorous by my bath, am more continent of thought. After bathing, even at noonday, a man realizes a morning or evening life. ”

“ But the late evening is the time of times. Then, with that unearthly beauty before one, it is not hard to realize how far one has to go. To write something that will be worthy of that rising moon, that pale light. ”

“ This must be true of some other portion of the year.
A fine evening and long twilight is another source of enjoyment which may be said to be unknown: at sunset every one hastens home, as it is immediately followed by darkness and damp. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Do not shorten the morning by getting up late, or waste it in unworthy occupations or in talk; look upon it as the quintessence of life, as to a certain extent sacred. Evening is like old age: we are languid, talkative, silly. Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death. ”

“ I had eaten nothing since four o'clock, and was famished; for I do not like stewed oysters and terrapins, which are the refreshments invariably handed round at an American evening party. Did not get to bed till two o'clock. How beautifully bright the heavens are here! The sky has an earnest colour that is lovely and [Pg 221] solemn to look at; and the moon, instead of being "the maiden with white fire laden," has a rich, mellow, golden light, than which nothing can be more beautiful. ”

“ There is also the prospect of evening service, followed by cold supper: the earlier hours of the day stretch now behind one at so vast and unwieldy a length that it seems impossible that one will ever reach the end of the day alive. ”

“ There is an evening twilight of the heart,
When its wild passion-waves are lull'd to rest,
And the eye sees life's fairy scenes depart,
As fades the day-beam in the rosy west. ”

“ Each morning sees some task begin,
Each evening sees it close;
Something attempted, something done,
Has earned a night’s repose. ”