Declin'd, was hasting now with prone career
To th' ocean isles, and in th' ascending scale
Of ncaven the stars that usher evening rose.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
In the western sky the downward sun
Looks out, effulgent, from amid the flush
Of broken clouds, gay-shifting to his beam.
Thomson's Seasons.
The dews of the evening most carefully shun;
Those tears of the sky for the loss of the sun.
Lord Chesterfield.
Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,
Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,
And while the bubbling and loud hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups,
That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each,
So let us welcome peaceful evening in.
This as I guess should be th' appointed time: For o'er our heads have pass'd on homeward wing Dark flights of rooks, and daws, and flocking birds Wheeling aloft with wild dissonant screams; Whilst from each hollow glen and river's bed Rose the white curling mist, and softly stole Shaks. Richard III. Up the dark wooded banks.
The weary sun hath made a golden set, And by the bright track of his fiery car, Gives token of a goodly day to-morrow.
See the descending sun,
Scatt'ring his beams about him as he sinks,
And gilding heaven above, and seas beneath,
With paint no mortal pencil can express.
Hopkins's Pyrrhus.
The sun hath lost his rage: his downward orb
Shoots nothing now but animating warmth,
And vital lustre; that with various ray
Joanna Baillie's Ethwald.
Now from his crystal urn, with chilling hand,
Vesper has sprinkled all the earth with dew,
A misty veil obscured the neighbouring land,
And shut the fading landscape from their view.
Mrs. Tighe,
The sultry summer day is done,
Lights up the clouds, those beauteous robes of The western hills have hid the sun,
Incessant roll'd into romantic shapes, The dream of waking fancy.
But mountain peak and village spire Retain reflection of his fire.
Thomson's Seasons. It was an evening bright and still
As ever blush'd on wave or bower,
Smiling from heaven, as if nought ill
Could happen in so sweet an hour.
Of walking comes; for him who lonely .oves
To seek the distant hills, and there converse
With nature; there to harmonize his heart,
And in pathetic song to breathe around
The harmony to others.
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
Now fades the glimmering 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 yorder ivy-mantled tower,
'The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wandering near her secret bower,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.
Moore's Loves of the Angels.
Now the noon,
Wearied with sultry toil, declines and falls
Into the mellow eve:-the west puts on
Her gorgeous beauties-palaces and halls,
And towers, all carv'd of the unstable cloud,
Welcome the calmly waning monarch-he
Sinks gently midst that glorious canopy
Down on his couch of rest-
t—even like a proud
King of the earth-the ocean.
A paler shadow strews Its mantle o'er the mountains; parting day Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues With a new colour as it gasps away, The last still lovest, 'ti-'t is gone-and all is grey. Byron's Childe Harold.
How dear to me the hour when daylight dies,
And sunbeams melt along the silent sea,
For then sweet dreams of other days arise,
And memory breathes her vesper sigh to thee.
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 ev'ry whisper'd word;
And gentle winds, and waters near,
Make music to the lonely ear.
Fairest of all that earth beholds, the hues
That live among the clouds, and flush the air,
Lingering and deepening at the hour of dews.
Bryant's Poems
The west with second pomp is bright,
Though in the east the dusk is thickening,
Twilight's first star breaks forth in white,
Into night's gold each moment quickening.
Street's Poems
The tender Twilight with a crimson cheek
Byron's Parisina. Leans on the breast of Eve. The wayward wind
Hath folded her fleet pinions, and gone down
To slumber by the darken'd woods.
Ave Maria! blessed be the hour!
The time, the clime, the spot where I so oft
Have felt that moment in its fullest power
Sink o'er the earth so beautiful and soft,
While swung the deep bell in the distant tower,
Or the faint dying day-hymn stole aloft,
And not a breath crept through the rosy air,
And yet the forest leaves seem'd stirr'd with prayer.
Soft hour! which makes the wish and melts the
heart
Of those who sail the seas, on the first day;
When they from their sweet friends are torn apart;
Or fills with love the pilgrim on his way,
As the far bell of vesper makes him start,
Seeming to weep the dying day's decay;
Is this a fancy which our reason scorns?
Ah! surely nothing dies but something mourns!
The evil we do, until we suffer it.
If he arm, arm; if he strew mines of treason,
Meet him with countermines; it is justice still
For goodness sake t' encounter ill with ill.
Beaumont and Fletcher,
There is some soul of goodness in things evil,
Would men observingly distil it out;
For our bad neighbour makes us early stirrers;
Which is both healthful and good husbandry.
Besides they are our outward consciences,
And preachers to us all; admonishing,
That we should dress us fairly for our end,
Thus we may gather honey from the weed,
And make a moral of the devil himself.
Timely advised, the coming evil shun!
Mrs. Hemans. Evil is limited. One cannot form
A scheme for universal evil.
Mrs. Hemans.
The summer day has clos'd—the sun is set:
Well have they done their office, those bright hours,
The latest of whose train goes softly out
In the red west.
Then insect wings are glittering in the beam
Of the low sun, and mountain-tops are bright,
Oh, let me by the crystal valley-stream
Wander amid the mild and mellow light;
And while the red-breast pipes his evening lay,
Give me one lonely hour to hymn the setting day.
Bryant's Poems.
Evil then results from imperfection.
Many surmises of evil alarm the hearts of the people. Longfellow's Evangeline.
No age hath been, since nature first began
To work Jove's wonders, but hath left behind
Some deeds of praise for mirrors unto man,
Which more than threatful laws have men inclin d,
To tread the paths of praise excites the mind:
Mirrors tie thoughts to virtue's duc respects;
Examples hasten deeds to good effects.
EXCELLENCE - EXECUTION-EXERCISE-EXILE.
A fault doth never with remorse
Our minds so deeply move,
As when another's guiltless life
Our error doth reprove.
He does allot for every exercise
A sev'ral hour; for sloth, the nurse of vices,
Brandon's Antony to Octavia. And rust of action, is a stranger to him.
Massinger's Duke of Florence. No body's healthful without exercise: Just wars are exercises of a state; Virtue's in motion, and contends to rise With generous ascents above a mate.
Aleyn's Poictiers. Weariness Can snore upon the flint, when resty sloth Finds the down pillow hard. Shaks. Cymbeline.
O unexpected stroke, worse than of death!
Must I thus leave thee, Paradise? thus leave
Thee, native soil, these happy walks and shades,
Quiet though sad, the respite of that day
Fit haunt of gods? where I had hop'd to spend,
That must be mortal to us both.
Milton's Paradise Lost, Some natural tears they dropt, but wip'd them
The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide:
They hand in hand, with wand'ring steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
But me, not destin'd such delights to share,
My prime of life in wandering spent and care:
Impell'd, with steps unceasing, to pursue
Some flecting good, that mocks me with the view;
That, like the circle bounding earth and skies,
Allures from far, yet, as I follow, flics;
My fortune leads to traverse realms alone,
And find no spot of all the world my own.
Goldsmith's Traveller.
Yes, yes! from out the herd, like a mark'd deer,
They drive the poor distraught. The storms of
heaven
Beat on him: gaping hinds stare at his woe;
And no one stops to bid heav'n speed his way.
Joanna Baillie's Ethwald.
And the bark sets sail;
And he is gone from all he loves for ever!
His wife, his boys, and his disconsolate parents!
Gone in the dead of night-unseen of any —
Without a word, a look of tenderness,
To be call'd up, when, in his lonely hours,
He would indulge in weeping.
Unhappy he! who from the first of joys,
Society, cut off, is left alone
Amid this world of death. Day after day,
Sad on the jutting eminence he sits,
And views the main that ever toils below;
Still fondly forming in the farthest verge,
Where the round ether mixes with the wave,
Ships, dim-discover'd, dropping from the clouds;
At evening, to the setting sun he turns
A mournful eye, and down his dying heart
Sinks helpless.
Oh! when shall I visit the land of my birth,
The loveliest land on the face of the earth?
When shall I those scenes of affection explore,
Our forests, our fountains,
Our hamlets, our mountains,
Deserted is my own good hall,
Its hearth is desolate;
Wild weeds are gathering on the wall,
My dog howls at the gate.
Byron's Childe Harold.
I depart,
Whither I know not; but the hour 's gone by,
When Albion's lessening shores could grieve or
glad mine eye.
Byron's Childe Harold.
Once more upon the waters! yet once more!
And the waves bound beneath me as a steed
That knows his rider. Welcome, to their roar!
Swift be their guidance, wheresoe'er it lead!
Though the strain'd mast should quiver as a reed,
And the rent canvass fluttering strew the gale,
Still must I on; for I am as a weed,
With the pride of our mountains, the maid I Flung from the rock, on ocean's foam, to sail
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Were far away from Venice, never saw
Her beautiful towers in the receding distance,
While every furrow of your vessel's track
Seem'd ploughing deep into your heart; you never
Saw day go down upon your native spires
So calmly with its gold and crimson glory,
And after dreaming a disturbed vision
Of them and theirs, awoke and found them not.
Byron-The Two Foscari.
The night-breeze freshens-she that day had pass'd
In watching all that Hope proclaim'd a mast;
Sadly she sate e-on high-impatience bore
At last her footsteps to the midnight shore:
And here she wander'd, heedless of the spray
That dash'd her garments oft, and warn'd away;
She saw not-felt not this, nor dar'd depart;
Nor deem'd it cold-her chill was at her heart.
Byron's Corsair.
But no! it came not; fast and far away
The shadow lessen'd as it clear'd the bay.
She gazid, and flung the sea-foam from her eyes,
To watch as for a rainbow in the skies.
On the horizon verg'd the distant deck,
Diminish'd - dwindled to a very speck –
Then vanish'd.
Where'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's
Byron's Childe Harold.
"Farewell, my Spain! a long farewell!" he cried
"Perhaps I may revisit thee no more,
But die, as many an exiled heart hath died,
Of its own thirst to see again thy shore."
Byron's Childe Harold
What exile from himself can flee?
To zones, though more and more remote,
Still, still pursues, where'er I be,
The blight of life-the demon thought.
Experience teacheth many things, and all men are his scholars;
Yet is he a strange tutor, unteaching that which he hath taught.
Tupper's Proverbial Philosophy.
A thousand volumes in a thousand tongues, enshrine the lessons of Experience;
A milk-white badge of wisdom; and can'st wield Yet a man shall read them all, and go forth none Thy tongue in senate, and thy hands in field.
True Trojans. If self-love lendeth him a glass, to colour all he
Their answers form what men experience call;
If wisdom's friend, her best; if not, worst foe.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Much had he read,
Much more had seen: he studied from the life,
And in th' original perus'd mankind.
Armstrong's Art of Preserving Health.
O teach him, while your lessons last,
To judge the present by the past;
Remind him of each wish pursued,
How rich it glow'd with promised good;
Remind him of each wish enjoy'd,
How soon his hopes possession cloy'd!
Lest in the features of another he find his own com
Tupper's Proverbial Philosophy.
Now sits expectation in the air, And hides a sword, from hilt unto the point, With crowns imperial, crowns, and coronets, Promis'd to Harry and his followers.
As is the night before some festival
To an impatient child that hath new robes,
And may not wear them.
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.
Oft expectation fails, and most oft there
Where most it promises: and oft it hits
Where hope is coldest, and despair most sits.
Shaks. All's Well
This old moon wanes: she lingers my desires,
Like to a step-dame, or a dowager,
Long withering out a young man's revenue.
Shaks. Midsummer Night's Dream.
Oh! how impatience gains upon the soul,
When the long promised hour of joy draws near!
How slow the tardy moments seem to roll!
What spectres rise of inconsistent fear!
To the fond doubting heart its hopes appear
Too brightly fair, too sweet to realize;
All seem but day-dreams of delight too dear!
Strange hopes and fears in painful contest rise,
While the scarce-trusted bliss seems but to cheat
the eyes.
Mrs. Tighe's Psyche.
"Yet doth he live!" exclaims the impatient heir,
And sighs for sables which he must not wear.
Byron's Lara.
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