Contents
-BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Twilight
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day.
Gray.
Like our dawn, merely a sob of light.
Victor Hugo.
Dim eclipse, disastrous twilight.
Milton.
Hail, twilight! sovereign of one peaceful hour!
Wordsworth.
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy.
Shakespeare.
As twilight melts beneath the moon away.
Byron.
The deathbed of a day, how beautiful.
Bailey.
The skies yet blushing with departed light.
Pope.
Nature hath appointed the twilight as a bridge to pass us out of day into night.
Fuller.
The gaudy, blabbing, and remorseful day is crept into the bosom of the sea.
Shakespeare.
Last of the hours that track the fading day.
Mrs. Radcliffe.
Fair, fleeting sister of the mournful night.
Mrs. Norton.
How dear to my soul is the mild twilight hour!
Moore.
As thus into the quiet night the twilight lapsed away.
Whittier.
Of evening tinct the purple, streaming amethyst is thine.
Thomson.
The lengthening shadows wait the first pale stars of twilight.
O. W. Holmes.
Faint and sweet thy light falls round the peasant’s homeward feet.
Mrs. Norton.
When the sun’s last rays are fadingInto twilight soft and dim.
Theodore L. Barker.
Twilight gray hath in her sober livery all things clad.
Milton.
Twilight’s soft dews steal o’er the village green, with magic tints to harmonize the scene.
Rogers.
Now the last red ray is gone;Now the twilight shadows hie.
Susan Coolidge.
A tender sadness drops upon my soul, like the soft twilight dropping on the world.
Alexander Smith.
Night was drawing and closing her curtain up above the world, and down beneath it.
Richter.
In the vale beneath the hillThe evening’s growing purple strengthens.
Margaret J. Preston.
The hour before the heavenly-harness’d teamBegins his golden progress in the east.
Shakespeare.
Beauteous Night lay deadUnder the pall of twilight, and the love-star sickened and shrank.
George Eliot.
How beautiful the silent hour, when morning and evening thus sit together, hand in hand, beneath the starless sky of midnight!
Longfellow.
Twilight makes us pensive; Aurora is the goddess of activity; despair curses at midnight; hope blesses at noon.
Beaconsfield.
How lovely are the portals of the night,When stars come out to watch the daylight die.
Thomas Cole.
Twilight is like death; the dark portal of night comes upon us, to open again in the glorious morning of immortality.
James Ellis.
The day is done; and slowly from the scene the stooping sun upgathers his spent shafts, and puts them back into his golden quiver!
Longfellow.
The babbling day has touched the hem of night’s garment, and, weary and still, drops asleep in her bosom.
Longfellow.
And not a breath crept through the rosy air, and yet the forest leaves seemed stirred with prayer.
Byron.
In the June twilight, in the soft gray twilight, the yellow sun-glow trembling through the rainy eve.
Miss Mulock.
The weary sun hath made a golden set,And, by the bright track of his fiery car,Gives signal of a goodly day to-morrow.
Shakespeare.
Look, the gentle dayBefore the wheels of Phœbus, round aboutDapples the drowsy east with spots of grey.
Shakespeare.
The west is broken into barsOf orange, gold, and gray;Gone is the sun, come are the stars,And night infolds the day.
George MacDonald.
The gloaming comes, the day is spent,The sun goes out of sight,And painted is the occidentWith purple sanguine bright.
Alexander Hume.
O, the sweet, sweet twilight just before the time of rest,When the black clouds are driven away, and the stormy winds suppressed.
D. M. Mulock.
Softly the evening came. The sun from the western horizon, like a magician, extended his golden wand o’er the landscape.
Longfellow.
Ah, County Guy, the hour is nigh,The sun has left the lea,The orange flower perfumes the bower,The breeze is on the sea.
Scott.
The sky is blue above,And cool the green sod lies below;It is the hour that claims for loveThe halcyon moments as they flow.
James T. Fields.
O Twilight! spirit that dost render birthTo dim enchantments—melting heaven to earth—Leaving on craggy hills and running streamsA softness like the atmosphere of dreams.
Mrs. Norton.
The summer day is closed—the sun is set:Well they have done their office, those bright hours,The latest of whose train goes softly outIn the red west.
William Cullen Bryant.
The west yet glimmers with some streaks of day:Now spurs the lated traveller apace,To gain the timely inn.
Shakespeare.
The air is full of hints of grief,Strange voices touched with pain—The pathos of the falling leafAnd rustling of the rain.
T. B. Aldrich.
The twilight is sad and cloudy,The wind blows wild and free,And like the wings of sea-birdsFlash the white caps of the sea.
Longfellow.
The sun is set; and in his latest beamsYon little cloud of ashen gray and gold,Slowly upon the amber air unrolled,The falling mantle of the Prophet seems.
Longfellow.
The sunbeams droppedTheir gold, and, passing in porch and niche,Softened to shadows, silvery, pale, and dim,As if the very Day paused and grew Eve.
Edwin Arnold.
PeacefullyThe quiet stars came out, one after one;The holy twilight fell upon the sea,The summer day was done.
Celia Thaxter.
The sun, declined, was hastening now with prone career to the ocean isles, and in the ascending scale of heaven the stars that usher evening rose.
Milton.
The summer’s songs are hushed. Up the lone shoreThe weary waves wash sadly, and a griefSounds in the wind, like farewells fond and brief:The cricket’s chirp but makes the silence more.
Celia Thaxter.
***th’ approach of nightThe skies yet blushing with departing light,When falling dews with spangles deck’d the glade,And the low sun had lengthen’d ev’ry shade.
Pope.
From that high mount of God whence light and shadeSpring both, the face of brightest heaven had changedTo grateful twilight.
Milton.
Twilight, ascending slowly from the east,Entwined in duskier wreaths her braided locksO’er the fair front and radiant eyes of day;Night followed, clad with stars.
Shelley.
Along the west the golden barsStill to a deeper glory grew;Above our heads the faint few starsLooked out from the unfathomed blue;And the fair city’s clamorous jarsSeemed melted in the evening hue.
W. B. Glazier.
One by one the flowers close,Lily and dewy roseShutting their tender petals from the moon:The grasshoppers are still; but not so soonAre still the noisy crows.
Christina G. Rossetti.
’Twas twilight, and the sunless day went downOver the waste of waters; like a veil,Which, if withdrawn, would but disclose the frownOf one whose hate is masked but to assail.
Byron.
Parting dayDies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbuesWith a new color at it gasps away,The last still loveliest, till—’tis gone—and all is gray.
Byron.
What heart has not acknowledged the influence of this hour, the sweet and soothing hour of twilight, the hour of love, the hour of adoration, the hour of rest, when we think of those we love only to regret that we have not loved them more dearly, when we remember our enemies only to forgive them.
Longfellow.
Now the soft hourOf walking comes; for him who lonely lovesTo seek the distant hills, and there converseWith Nature, there to harmonize his heart,And in pathetic Song to breathe aroundThe harmony to others.
Thomson.
The moon is bleached as white as wool,And just dropping under;Every star is gone but three,And they hang far asunder,—There’s a sea-ghost all in gray,A tall shape of wonder!
Jean Ingelow.
Sweet shadows of twilight! how calm their repose,While the dewdrops fall soft in the breast of the rose!How blest to the toiler his hour of releaseWhen the vesper is heard with its whisper of peace!
O. W. Holmes.
In the twilight of morning to climb to the top of the mountain,—Thee to salute, kindly star, earliest herald of day,—And to await, with impatience, the gaze of the ruler of heaven,—Youthful delight, oh, how oft lurest thou me out in the night.
Goethe.
Twilight’s soft dews steal o’er the village-green,With magic tints to harmonize the scene.Stilled is the hum that through the hamlet brokeWhen round the ruins of their ancient oakThe peasants flocked to hear the minstrel play,And games and carols closed the busy day.
Samuel Rogers.
Still Twilight, welcome! Rest, how sweet art thou!Now eve o’erhangs the western cloud’s thick brow;The far-stretch’d curtain of retiring light,With fiery treasures fraught; that on the sightFlash from its bulging sides, where darkness lowers,In Fancy’s eye, a chain of mould’ring tow’rs;Or craggy coasts just rising into view,Midst jav’lins dire and darts of streaming blue.
Bloomfield.
Fades the light,And afarGoeth day, cometh night,And a starLeadeth allSpeedeth allTo their rest.
Bret Harte.
