# Twilight

    For other uses, see Twilight (disambiguation).
Twilight is the time between dawn and sunrise, and the time between sunset and dusk. Sunlight scattered in the upper atmosphere illuminates the lower atmosphere, and the surface of the Earth is neither completely lit nor completely dark. The sun itself is not actually visible because it is below the horizon.

## Quotes

* 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 (1879), Book II, line 466.
* Parting day Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues With a new colour as it gasps away, The last still loveliest, till 'tis gone and all is gray.
** Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto IV (1818), St 29.
* 'Twas twilight, and the sunless day went down Over the waste of waters, like a veil, Which, if withdrawn, would but disclose the frown Of one whose hate is mask'd but to assail.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 (1818-24), Canto LT, St 49.
* Beauteous Night lay dead Under the pall of twilight, and the love-star sickened and shrank.
** George Eliot, The Spanish Gypsy (1868), Bk n 22.
* Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherized upon a table;
** T.S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (1909), lines 1–3
* Alone, what did Bloom feel? The cold of interstellar space, thousands of degrees below freezing point or the absolute zero of Fahrenheit, Centigrade or Réaumur: the incipient intimations of proximate dawn.
** James Joyce, Ulysses, (1922), Ch. 17, "Ithaca".
* Twilight remained, a fairy half-light in which all things looked much more charming than they really were.
** Murray Leinster, The Pirates of Zan (1959), Chapter 7
* But look, the morn, in russet mantle clad, Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill.
** William Shakespeare, Hamlet (c. 1600) Act I, Sc. 1, line 165–66
* The hour before the heavenly-harness'd team Begins his golden progress in the east.
** William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part I (c. 1597), Act VI, Sc. 1, line 221.
* Look, the gentle day Before the wheels of Phoebus, round about Dapples the drowsy east with spots of grey.
** William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing (1598-99), Act V, Sc. 3, line 25.
* 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.
** William Shakespeare, Richard III (c. 1591), Act V, Scene 3, line 19.
* 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).
* Now the soft hour Of walking comes, for him who lonely loves 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.
** James Thomson, Seasons, Summer (1727), line 1,378.

### Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922)

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 823-24.
* Fair Venus shines Even in the eve of day, with sweetest beam Propitious shines, and shakes a trembling flood Of softened radiance from her dewy locks.
** Anna Letitia Barbauld, A Summer Evening's Meditation, line 10.
* The summer day is closed, the sun is set Well they have done their office, those bright hours, The latest of whose tram goes softly out In the red west.
** William Cullen Bryant, An Evening Revery.
* How lovely are the portals of the night, When stars come out to watch the daylight die.
** Thomas Cole, Twilight. See Loins Noble's Life and Works of Cole, Ch XXXV.
* 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 lur'st thou me out in the night.
** Goethe, Venetian Epigrams.
* 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 release When the vesper is heard with its whisper of peace!
** Oliver Wendell Holmes, Poems of the Class of '29, "Our Banker", St 12.
* The lengthening shadows wait The first pale stars of twilight.
** Oliver Wendell Holmes, Poems of the Class of '29, "Even Sang", St 6.
* The gloaming comes, the day is spent, The sun goes out of sight, And painted is the Occident With purple sanguine bright.
** Alexander Hume, Story of a Summer Day.
* The sun is set, and in his latest beams Yon little cloud of ashen gray and gold, Slowly upon the amber air unrolled, The falling mantle of the Prophet seems.
** Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, A Summer Day by the Sea.
* 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.
* The west is broken into bars Of orange, gold, and gray, Gone is the sun, come are the stars, And night infolds the day.
** George MacDonald, Songs of the Summer Nights.
* Dim eclipse, disastrous twilight.
** John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book I, line 597.
* From that high mount of God whence light and shade Spring both, the face of brightest heaven had changed To grateful twilight.
** John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book V, line 643.
* Our lady of the twilight, She hath such gentle hands, So lovely are the gifts she brings From out the sunset-lands, So bountiful, so merciful, So sweet of soul is she. And over all the world she draws Her cloak of shanty.
** Alfred Noyed, Our Lady of the Twilight.
* * * * th' approach of night The skies yet blushing with departing light, When falling dews with spangles deck'd. the glade, And the low sun had lengthen'd evry shade.
** Alexander Pope, Pastorals Autumn, line 98.
* Night was drawing and closing her curtain up above the world, and down beneath it.
** Jean Paul Friedrich Richter, Flower, Fruit, and Thorn Pieces, Ch II.
* 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, Pt I, line 1.
* Twilight, a timid fawn, went glimmering by. And Night, the dark-blue hunter, followed fast.
** G. W. Russell, Refuge.
* Her feet along the dewy hills Are lighter than blown thistledown, She bears the glamour of one star Upon her violet crown.
** Clinton Scollard, Dusk.
* Then the nun-like twilight came, violet-vestured and still, And the night's first star outshone afar on the eve of Bunker Hill.
** Clinton Scollard, On the Eve of Bunker Hill.
* 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.
** Sir Walter Scott, Quentin Durward, Ch IV.
* Her eyes as stars of twilight fair, Like twilight's too her dusky hair.
** William Wordsworth, She was a Phantom of Delight.
* As pensive evening deepens into night.
** William Wordsworth, To ____.