The nearer the dawn the darker the night. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
This kind of night – it’s like the clocks are going backwards. Boardwalk Empire s5e6: Devil You Know, club gangsta, HBO 2014
For much of human history, when the sun went down and the dark set in, we were at the mercy of the night. Jim Al-Khalili, Light and Dark, BBC 2013
O nights and feasts divine! Horace, Satires
Most glorious night!
Thou wert not made for slumber. Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage III:93
Dusky like night, but night with all her stars,
Or cavern sparkling with its native spars;
With eyes that were a language and a spell,
A form like Aphrodites in her shell,
With all her loves around her on the deep,
Voluptuous as the first approach of sleep. Lord Byron, The Island
For the night
Shows stars and women in a better light. Lord Byron, Don Juan II:153
I linger yet with nature, for the night
Hath been to me a more familiar face
Than that of man; and in her starry shade
Of him and solitary loveliness
I learned the language of the world. Lord Byron, Manfred
So, we’ll go no more a-roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright. Lord Byron, So We’ll Do No More A-Roving
The night has a thousand eyes
And the day but one. F W Bourdillon
It’s been a hard day’s night,
And I’ve been working like a dog. John Lennon & Paul McCartney, title of song 1964
I have been acquainted with the night. Robert Frost, Acquainted with the Night, 1928
Beyond the window, night stands like a black column ... A shadowy radiance lies on the earth, and hanging from the bushes are necklaces of gleaming fruit. Isaac Babel, Red Cavalry, 1926
O struggling with the darkness of the night,
And visited all night by troops of stars. Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1772-1834, Hymn Before Sunrise, in the Vale of Chamouni, 1809
In the description of night in Macbeth, the beetle and the bat detract from the general idea of darkness – inspissated gloom. Samuel Johnson
Come to me in the silence of the night;
Come in the speaking silence of a dream;
Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright
As sunlight on a stream;
Come back in tears,
O memory, hope, love of finished years. Christina Rossetti, Echo 1862
Hung be heavens with black, yield day to night! William Shakespeare, Henry VI I i 1
Acts of black night. William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus V i 64, Aaron to Lucius
Come, civil night,
Thou sober-suited matron all in black ... Come gentle night; come, loving, black-browed night. William Shakespeare, Romeo & Juliet III ii @10-11
Night’s swift dragons cut the clouds full fast,
And yonder shines Aurora’s harbinger;
At whose approach, ghosts, wandering here and there,
Troop home to churchyards. William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream I i 149, Puck
O weary night, O long and tedious night,
Abate thy hours. ibid. III iii 19, Helena
And think no more of this night’s accidents
But as the fierce vexation of a dream. ibid. IV i 75-76, Oberon to Robin
Now it is the time of night
That the graves, all gaping wide,
Every one lets forth his sprite
In the church way paths to glide. ibid. V ii 9-12
The moon shines bright: in such a night as this
Troilus methinks mounted the Troyan walls,
And sighed his soul toward the Grecian tents,
Where Cressid lay that night. William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice V i 1
In such a night
Stood Dido with a willow in her hand
Upon the wild sea-banks, and waft her love
To come again to Carthage. ibid. V i 9
How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears; soft stillness and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony. ibid. V i 54
The night methinks is but the daylight sick. ibid. V i 124
These blessed candles of the night. ibid. V i 220
Night hangs upon mine eyes. William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar V v 41, Brutus
’Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world. William Shakespeare, Hamlet III ii
This will last out a night in Russia,
When nights are longest there. William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure II i 144
This is the night
That either makes me or fordoes me quite. William Shakespeare, Othello V i 128
This out-of-season threat’ning dark-eyed night. William Shakespeare, The History of King Lear II i 119, Regan
Alack, the night comes on, and the bleak winds
Do sorely rustle. For many miles about
There’s not a bush. ibid. II ii 457-459, Gloucester
Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry, ‘Hold, hold!’ William Shakespeare, Macbeth I v 50
The night has been unruly. Where we lay
Our chimneys were blown down, and, as they say,
Lamentings heard i’ th’ air, strange screams of death,
And prophesying with accents terrible
Of dire combustion and confused events
New-hatched to th’ woeful time. The obscure bird
Clamoured the livelong night. Some say the earth
Was feverous and did shake. ibid. II iii
By th’ 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
When living light should kiss it? ibid. II iv @6, Ross
Ere the bat hath flown
His cloistered flight, ere, to black Hecate’s summons
The shard-borne beetle with his drowsy hums
Hath rung night’s yawning peal, there shall be done
A deed of dreadful note. ibid. III ii 40
Come, seeling night,
Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day,
And with thy bloody and invisible hand,
Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond
Which keeps me pale! Light thickens, and the crow
Makes wings to the rooky wood;
Good things of day begin to droop and drowse,
Whiles night’s black agents to their preys do rouse. ibid. III ii 46
When trade and traffic and all the noise of town
Is dimmed, and on the streets and squares
The filmy curtain of the night sinks down
With sleep, the recompense of cares,
To me the darkness brings not sleep nor rest. Alexander Pushkin, Remembrances, 1828