Dean Koontz - Wilfred Owen - Dorothy Parker - John Milton - Thomas Gray - Charles Cotton - Lord Byron - Alfred Lord Tennyson - Edwin Arnold - Percy Bysshe Shelley - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - Samuel Rogers - William Wordsworth - F Scott Fitzgerald - Thomas Hardy - John Masters -
Even as a child, she had preferred night to day, had enjoyed sitting out in the yard after sunset, under the star-speckled sky listening to frogs and crickets. Darkness soothed. It softened the sharp edges of the world, toned down the too-harsh colors. With the coming of twilight, the sky seemed to recede; the universe expanded. The night was bigger than the day, and in its realm, life seemed to have more possibilities. Dean Koontz, Midnight
How blind are men to twilight’s mystic things! Wilfred Owen, The Little Mermaid
As only New Yorkers know, if you can get through the twilight, you’ll live through the night. Dorothy Parker
Dim eclipse, disastrous twilight. John Milton, Paradise Lost I:597
Now came still evening on, and twilight grey
Had in her sober livery all things clad. ibid. IV:598
From that high mount of God whence light and shade
Spring both, the face of brightest heaven had changed
To grateful twilight. ibid. V:643
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea,
The plowman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
Now fades the glimm’ring landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds;
Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tow’r
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such, as wand’ring near her secret bow’r,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.
Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree’s shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mould’ring heap,
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
The shadows now so long do grow,
That brambles like tall cedars show,
Molehills seem mountains, and the ant
Appears a monstrous elephant. Charles Cotton, 1630-87
It is the hour when from the boughs
The nightingale’s high note is heard;
It is the hour when lovers’ vows
Seem sweet in every whispered word;
And gentle winds, and waters near,
Make music to the lonely ear.
Each flower the dews have lightly wet,
And in the sky the stars are met,
And on the wave is deeper blue,
And on the leaf a browner hue,
And in the heaven that clear obscure,
So softly dark, and darkly pure.
Which follows the decline of day,
As twilight melts beneath the moon away. Lord Byron, Parisina st1
Twas twilight, and the sunless day went down
Over the waste of waters, like a veil,
Which, if withdrawn, would but disclose the frown
Of one whose hate is mask’d but to assail. Lord Byron, Don Juan
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Alfred Lord Tennyson, Ulysses l54
The sunbeams dropped
Their gold, and, passing in porch and niche,
Softened to shadows, silvery, pale, and dun,
As if the very Day paused and grew Eve. Edwin Arnold, Light of Asia II:466
Twilight, ascending slowly from the east,
Entwined in duskier wreaths her braided locks
O’er the fair front and radiant eyes of day,
Night followed, clad with stars. Percy Bysshe Shelley, Alastor, or The Spirit of Solitude, 1816
The twilight is sad and cloudy,
The wind blows wild and free,
And like the wings of sear-birds
Hash the white caps of the sea. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Twilight
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 broke
When round the nuns of their ancient oak
The peasants flocked to hear the minstrel play,
And games and carols closed the busy day. Samuel Rogers, Pleasures of Memory
Her eyes as stars of twilight fair,
Like twilight’s too her dusky hair. William Wordsworth, She Was a Phantom of Delight
So we drove on toward death through the cooling twilight. F Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
At half-past six the sun settled down upon the levels, with the aspect of a great forge in the heavens, and presently a monstrous pumpkin-like moon arose on the other hand. The pollard windows, tortured out of their natural shape by incessant choppings, became spiny-haired monsters as they stood up against it. Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D’Urbervilles
The sun sank as a dark red disk from which ragged pennants of green, gold, blue and saffron trailed across the lower sky. The glow died out of the dusty heat haze, leaving the air dead. The dust storm passed by the south, but the threat of it made the twilight black and electric. Then the word passed. It was not even yet an exact word, but a curse and a warning: This is the night. John Masters, Nightrunners of Bengal p198