Nightlight

“ I wonder whether you have ever thought of this darkness, which would be so dreadful did it last long, as one of the blessings which God has given us. The night is the time of sleep and rest for animals and plants, as well as for weary men and women, and children who can get tired even with their play. God watches over you while you sleep—"the darkness and the light are both alike" to Him—and you get up in the morning fresh, and ready for a new day. ”

“ When does day now lift up the confines of my dwelling place, when does the night throw open her vastness for me, and send me the stars for company? There is no night in a city. How can I lose myself in the magnificent forest of darkness when night is only a thin scattering of the trees of shadow with barrenness of lights between! ”

“ Oh! sweet and beautiful is Night, when the silver Moon is high, And countless Stars, like clustering gems, hang sparkling in the sky, While the balmy breath of the summer breeze comes whispering down the glen, And one fond voice alone is heard—oh! Night is lovely then! But when that voice, in feeble moans of sickness and of pain, But mocks the anxious ear that strives to catch its sounds in vain,— When silently we watch the bed, by the taper's flickering light, Where all we love is fading fast—how terrible is Night!! ”

“ Night brings no gloom to the heart with its welcome shade. Through the transparent darkness pour the stars their almost spiritual rays. Man under them seems a young child, and his huge globe a toy. The cool night bathes the world as with a river, and prepares his eyes again for the crimson dawn. ”

“ Sleep shakes his wings free of us as the day-star quivers overhead, and the quiet visions of the night pass from the kindly darkness and look out upon the new day through our lustrous eyes. There is no waking to the sombre laws that once set us limits in the world; there is no border 'twixt our dreams and our life: on flows the level tide through waking and through sleeping, through light and shadow, day by day and night by night. ”

“ You think you will enjoy the evening twilight an hour or two before going to bed, and lo! the morning begins to dawn. It seems absurd to turn in and sleep by daylight, but you sleep, nevertheless, until eight or nine o'clock, and get up but little refreshed with your repose. You miss the grateful covering of darkness, the sweet, welcome gloom, which shuts your senses, one after one, like the closing petals of a flower, in the restoring trance of the night. The light comes through your eyelids as you sleep, and a certain nervous life of the body that should sleep too keeps awake and active. ”

“ Night! the abhorred magician Night!
The black astrologer Night!
Night is the world!—I shiver with fright:—
The air is full of evil things,
The coil and glitter of snaky rings,
And, the tremor of vast invisible wings,
That are not heard but felt:
They touch my hair, my hand, my cheek,
They mope and mouth, but they never speak
To utter their awful history.
Oh, when will the darkness break and melt,
Like blocks of ice on a golden reef,
And little by little, as leaf by leaf,
In light and color and form increased,
The rose of morning blooms in the east,—
The old yet ever new mystery! ”

“ At noon-day the sky is as black as pitch, except in the region of the sun; and the stars shine out as at midnight. When the sun disappears in the horizon, darkness is as sudden as the darkness of an eclipse, or the extinguishing of a candle in a room. ”

“ Night grants thee the full freedom of the skies,
Nor rudely reprimands thy lifted eye;
With gain, and joy, she bribes thee to be wise. 728
Night opes the noblest scenes, and sheds an awe,
Which gives those venerable scenes full weight,
And deep reception, in th’ intender’d heart;
While light peeps through the darkness, like a spy;
And darkness shows its grandeur by the light.
Nor is the profit greater than the joy,
If human hearts at glorious objects glow,
And admiration can inspire delight. ”

“ Thou seest, the heavens, as troubled with man's act,
Threatens his bloody stage: by the clock 'tis day,
And yet dark night strangles the travelling lamp.
Is 't night's predominance, or the day's shame,
That darkness does the face of earth entomb, ⁠9
When living light should kiss it? ”

“ Yet, nevertheless, both light and darkness, night and day, are but the accidents of a little time. It is twilight—the twilight of the morning and of the gods—that is the true normal of the universe. Night is but the shadow of the earth, light the nearness of the central sun. ”

“ Manuscript of "To Night", page 1 Manuscript of "To Night", page 2
Swiftly walk o'er the western wave,
Spirit of Night!
Out of the misty eastern cave,
Where, all the long and lone daylight,
Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear,
Which make thee terrible and dear--
Swift be thy flight!
Wrap thy form in a mantle gray,
Star-inwrought!
Blind with thine hair the eyes of day ”

“ 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. ”

“ Some say that the nights were created for the sons of men to sleep, but if it is so, why should the nights be so beautiful to behold, when the moon shines, and the stars tremble and glitter in the blue of the sky? ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the still night!
Yes, e'er I sink to rest,
By the fire's dying light,
Thou Lord of Earth and Heaven!
I bless thee, who hast given
Unto life's fainting travellers, the night,
The soft, still, holy night! ”

“ BIRD RAPTURES. The sunrise wakes the lark to sing, The moonrise wakes the nightingale. Come darkness, moonrise, every thing That is so silent, sweet, and pale: Come, so ye wake the nightingale. Make haste to mount, thou wistful moon, Make haste to wake the nightingale: Let silence set the world in tune [264] To hearken to that wordless tale Which warbles from the nightingale O herald skylark, stay thy flight One moment, for a nightingale Floods us with sorrow and delight. To-morrow thou shalt hoist the sail; Leave us to-night the nightingale. ”

“ When the evening shadows have fallen on the landscape, the darkness begins to be illuminated here and there by twinkling points of fire, which multiply as the night grows late, till they appear as numerous on earth as the stars in the sky. ”

“ In life, the mind and the circumstance give the true seasons, and regulate the darkness and the light. Of two men standing on the same foot of earth, the one revels in the joyous noon, the other shudders in the solitude of night. For Hope and Fortune, the day-star is ever shining. For Care and Penury, Night changes not with the ticking of the clock, nor with the shadow on the dial. Morning for the heir, night for the houseless, and God’s eye over both. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Night is really only beautiful so far as it is not night, — that is, for its stars, which are sources of resolute daylight in other spheres, and for its moon, which is daylight’s memory, realized, softened, and refined. ”

“ GOOD NIGHT
When the bright lamp is carried in,
The sunless hours again begin;
O'er all without, in field and lane,
The haunted night returns again.
Now we behold the embers flee
About the firelit hearth; and see
Our faces painted as we pass,
[98] Like pictures, on the window-glass.
Must we to bed indeed? Well then,
Let us arise and go like men,
And face with an undaunted tread
The long black passage up to bed. ”

“ And this goodness manifested in the formation of the world, is not more clearly discovered in any thing than in the return of day and night, heat and cold, summer and winter. We are pleased with the light in the morning, but it is after we have rested well in the night: when a few hours are spent, we grow weary of the light, and wish for the return of the silence and darkness of the nocturnal season. ”

“ I love to stray at the close of day,
Through groves of linden trees,
When gushing notes from song-birds' throats,
Are vocal in the breeze.
I love the night—the glorious night!
When hearts beat warm and true ”

“ In another mood the quiet, subtle sounds of night seem to penetrate devotion with an overpowering tenderness, to waft thought higher even than meditation undisturbed. “It is black night. But you can still hear the crickets, the streamlet, and the nightingale, just one, which sings, sings, sings, in the thick darkness. ”

“ There is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But, oh! the night---the cool, luxurious night,
Which closes round us when the day grows dim,
And the sun sinks from his meridian height,
Behind the ocean's occidental rim!
Clouds, in thin streaks of purple, green and red,
Gather around his setting, and absorb
The last rich rays of glory, that are shed,
In wide profusion, from his failing orb. ”

“ In a few seconds it has the appearance of the sky upon a dark night; but, as the eye becomes accustomed to the darkness, small spots are seen like stars; and they keep increasing till the vaulted roof has the appearance of a lovely star-light night. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But what after all is one night? A short space, especially when the darkness dims so soon, and so soon a bird sings, a cock crows, or a faint green quickens, like a turning leaf, in the hollow of the wave. Night, however, succeeds to night. The winter holds a pack of them in store and deals them equally, evenly, with indefatigable fingers. ”

“ Had her sleep been lighter at the dead hour of the night, when the wind was whistling loudly outside, and darkness lay over the valley like a pall, had her sleep been lighter that noisy night, this true story would never have been written. ”

“ Will night ever come?
Yes, it comes at last, as God’s good gifts always come, to refresh and sweeten our lives. The sky flushes with sunset light. Shadows creep up from the east; a cool breeze touches the fevered faces. ”

“ Such a night was it, as you would select for a stroll in company with the being—the one and only being—who, by the mysterious dictation of Nature, has entwined herself around your heart—a night upon which you feel a wayward longing to have white arms entwined around your neck, and bright eyes before your face, with that voluptuous gleaming that can only be felt to perfection under the mystic light of the moon. ”

“ One clear night always is, to common eyes, just like another; for what hath any night to show but one moon and some stars—a blue vault, with here a few braided, and there a few castellated, clouds? yet no two nights ever bore more than a family resemblance to each other before the studious and instructed eye of him who has long communed with Nature, and is familiar with every smile and frown on her changeful, but not capricious, countenance. ”

“ The Daylight is Dying The daylight is dying Away in the west, The wild birds are flying In silence to rest; In leafage and frondage Where shadows are deep, They pass to its bondage — The kingdom of sleep. And watched in their sleeping By stars in the height, They rest in your keeping, Oh, wonderful night. When night doth her glories Of starshine unfold, 'Tis then that the stories Of bush-land are told. Unnumbered I hold them In memories bright, But who could unfold them, Or read them aright? Beyond all denials The stars in their glories The breeze in the myalls Are part of these stories. ”

“ The night is dark, and the way is long,
⁠And the clouds are flying fast;
The night-wind sings a dreary song,
⁠And the trees creak in the blast:
The moon is down in the tossing sea,
⁠And the stars shed not a ray ”

“ Night.-The horizon is all darkness, and the sea reflects the white visage of the night-sun as in a mirror of steel. In the air we see giant columns of pallid light, distinct, based upon the indigo-coloured waves, and standing with their heads lost in endless space. The stars glitter with exceeding brilliance. ”

“ Elder Snow, he says that it's singular we regard day as illumination and night as darkness,—day that really hems us in with narrow light and shuts us upon ourselves, night that sets us free and reveals to us all the secrets of the sky. ”

“ YEARS and years ago at the very beginning of time, when the world had just been made, there was no night. It was day all the time. No one had ever heard of sunrise or sunset, starlight or moonbeams. There were no night birds, nor night beasts, nor night flowers. ”

“ They hear the bell of midnight toll,
And shiver in their flesh and soul;
They lie on hard, cold wood or stone,
Iron, and ache in every bone;
They hate the night: they see no eyes
Of loved ones in the starlit skies. ”