Quotes & Sayings About Night Skies

Selfish little flower dancing beneath flames do you dare drift in this wind alongside me? Take my hand and let us see skies untouched by night. You are not alone. Never have, and never will be. Death is only the beginning, but our breath shall reign forever. — H.S. Crow

These steel monstrosities screamed night and day, blotted out the starlit skies and Northern Lights with flashing red strobes, slaughtered thousands of bats and entire flocks of birds banished tourism and wildlife, made people sick and drove them from their now-valueless homes. — Mike Bond

Oh, Constellations of the early night
That sparkled brighter as the twilight died,
And made the darkness glorious! I have seen
Your rays grow dim upon the horizon's edge
And sink behind the mountains. I have seen
The great Orion, with his jewelled belt,
That large-limbed warrior of the skies, go down
Into the gloom. Beside him sank a crowd
Of shining ones. — William C. Bryant

People ... of the universe! Tonight ... is the night.. when the skies will open, and spray forth a divine hand with pointed finger! And it will say ... everybody ... you're not just a duck ... YOU ARE HUMAN! YOU ARE HUMAAAAN!!! — Thurston Moore

let me die
from having being drunk on
indigo skies, my liver...
overflowing with stars. — Sanober Khan

Kelly tried to soothe his racing heart as he took a seat and leaned back. This was going to be a long night, but he had learned long ago that dark times are best weathered with those you love. And when the dawn of a new day greeted them, he prayed that the skies would be clear, the rest of their days spent together basking in the light. — Jay Bell

Along the shore the cloud waves break, The twin suns sink beneath the lake, The shadows lengthen In Carcosa. Strange is the night where black stars rise, And strange moons circle through the skies But stranger still is Lost Carcosa. Songs that the Hyades shall sing, Where flap the tatters of the King, Must die unheard in Dim Carcosa. Song of my soul, my voice is dead; Die thou, unsung, as tears unshed Shall dry and die in Lost Carcosa. Cassilda's Song in "The King in Yellow," Act i, Scene 2. — Anonymous

The Aether flowed, corded and angry, giving the night a blue, marbled glow. After the storm, the calm skies had only held for a day. Now there was little difference between day and night anymore. Days were darkened by clouds and the blue cast of Aether. Nights were brightened by the same. They flowed together, the edges blurring into an endless day. An ever night. — Veronica Rossi

Beyond the Years

I the years the answer lies,
Beyond where brood the grieving skies
And Night drops tears.
Where Faith rod-chastened smiles to rise
And doff its fears,
And carping Sorrow pines and dies -
Beyond the years.

II

Beyond the years the prayer for rest
Shall beat no more within the breast;
The darkness clears,
And Morn perched on the mountain's crest
Her form uprears -
The day that is to come is best,
Beyond the years.

III

Beyond the years the soul shall find
That endless peace for which it pined,
For light appears,
And to the eyes that still were blind
With blood and tears,
Their sight shall come all unconfined
Beyond the years. — Paul Laurence Dunbar

If one reads the biographies of physicists like Bohr, Heisenberg, Chandrashekhar, and Bethe, one gets the impression that without hikes in the mountains and the vision of night skies their science would not have amounted to much. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began. — W.H. Davies

Do me a favor ... Stand up, walk to wherever the nearest window is, and just look outside. You may not know this, but there's an entire planets-worth of summers, friends, sunsets, street lamps, songs, late nights, great films, and night skies waiting for you. Your life is as amazing as you want it to be, but first, you have to let it be that way. — Backseat Goodbye

Your voice so sweet and tender whispers lovely lullabies.
Making me swoon in awe as we dream under the night skies.
Leaving me nostalgic until we both say our goodbyes.
Kissing away our dreams as we wipe the tears from our eyes.
Wishing upon each star until the sunrise. — Raneem Kayyali

Normally death came at night, taking a person in their sleep, stopping their heart or tickling them awake, leading them to the bathroom with a splitting headache before pouncing and flooding their brain with blood. It waits in alleys and metro stops. After the sun goes down plugs are pulled by white-clad guardians and death is invited into an antiseptic room.
But in the country death comes, uninvited, during the day. It takes fishermen in their longboats. It grabs children by the ankles as they swim. In winter it calls them down a slope too steep for their budding skills, and crosses their skies at the tips. It waits along the shore where snow met ice not long ago but now, unseen by sparkling eyes, a little water touches the shore, and the skater makes a circle slightly larger than intended. Death stands in the woods with a bow and arrow at dawn and dusk. And it tugs cars off the road in broad daylight, the tires spinning furiously on ice or snow, or bright autumn leaves. — Louise Penny

From sunset she appeared,

Her cloak pierced by a bloom

Of unfamiliar climes.


She summoned me somewhere

Into the northern gloom

And aimless winter ice.


And bonfire burned 'mid night,

And with its tongues the blaze

Did lick the very skies.


The eyes flashed fiery light,

And falling as black snakes

The tresses were released.


And then the snakes encircled

My mind and lofty spirit

Lay spread upon the cross.


And in the snowdust's swirl

To black eyes I am true,

To beauty of the coils.

(untitled: "From sunset she appeared") — Alexander Blok

But least is he who, with enchanted eyes
Filled with high visions of fair shapes to be,
Muses which god he shall immortalize
In the proud Parian's perpetuity,
Till twilight warns him from the punctual skies
That the night cometh wherein none shall see. — Edith Wharton

And the skies: in one day the sky could travel from green at dawn to a noon-time blue so severe it was almost black to hot silver in the afternoon to roiling burgundy at sunset. Just before night it flowered in yawning, imperial violets. Wedges of mauve, cauldrons of peach - skies more like drugs than colors. — Anthony Doerr

Can a physicist visualize an electron? The electron is materially inconceivable and yet, it is so perfectly known through its effects that we use it to illuminate our cities, guide our airlines through the night skies and take the most accurate measurements. What strange rationale makes some physicists accept the inconceivable electrons as real while refusing to accept the reality of a Designer on the ground that they cannot conceive Him? — Wernher Von Braun

He who boasts of being perfect is perfect in folly. I never saw a perfect man. Every rose has its thorns, and every day its night. Even the sun shows spots, and the skies are darkened with clouds; and faults of some kind nestle in every bosom. — Charles Spurgeon

Dawn will come,' I told him quietly. 'The night can be very dark; but I'll stay by you until the sun rises. These shadows cannot touch you while I am here. Soon we'll see the first hint of grey in the sky, the color of a pigeon's coat, then the smallest touch of the sun's finger, and one bird will be bold enough to wake first and sing of tall trees and open skies and freedom. Then all will brighten and color will wash across the earth and it will be a new day. I will stay with you, until then. — Juliet Marillier

The Yognul people of Australia thought the constellation represented a canoe. But as we move into the southern hemisphere, a marked change in the nature of the constellations becomes apparent. The southern constellations were named by explorers of the 16th and 17th centuries. Instead of great heroes and gods, we have the keels of ships, sextants, telescopes and the like, things that mattered most to the people of this era. What constellations would we put in the night sky today? Indeed, when human beings go out and colonise the stars, what constellations will they put up in their night skies? — Paul Abel

Algol is the name of the winking demon star, Medusa of the skies; fair but deadly to look on, even for one who is already dying.
Ah, the bright stars of the night.
Almost they obliterate the clear white pain. A thousand stars shining in the ether; but no dazzling newcomer. And so little time left, so little time ...
Yet still two-faced Medusa laughs from behind the clouds, demanding homage. Homage, Medusa, or a sword, a blade sharper than death itself.
The wind stirs. Night clouds obscure the universe. A lower music now, a different kind of death.
No stars tonight, my love.
No Selene. — Elizabeth Redfern

Clear skies will mean you are happy. Rain will mean you're crying. Sunset means you are embarrassed. Night will mean you are gently holding me. — Mika.

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes ... — George Gordon Byron

You meaner beauties of the night, That poorly satisfy our eyes More by your number than your light; You common people of the skies, What are you when the sun shall rise? This was printed with music as early as 1624, in East's Sixth Set of Books, and is found in many manuscripts. — Henry Wotton

Sheh walks in beauty like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies; and all that's best of dark and bright meet in her aspect and her eyes. Another bit of bread and cheese, he said to the lad behind the bar. — P.G. Wodehouse

Children were allowed to lie down on the park as it was being moved. This was considered a concession, although no one knew why a concession was necessary, or why it was to children that this concession must be made. The biggest fireworks show in history lit the skies of New York City that night, and the Philarmonic played its heart out.
The children of New York lay on their backs, body to body, filling every inch of the park, as if it had been designed for them and that moment. The fireworks sprinkled down, dissolving in the air just before they reached the ground, and the children were pulled, one millimeter and one second at a time, into Manhattan and adulthood. By the time the park found its current resting place, every single one of the children had fallen asleep, and the park was a mosaic of their dreams. Some hollered out, some smiled unconsciously, some were perfectly still. — Jonathan Safran Foer

Wake up O dear,
Into the glory of another morn,
The night has ended, darkness has shredded.
Bathed in the delight of heavenly shower,
The earth is decked by sparkling dews.
Fly high upon the celestial spheres, for
The skies are clear, horizons boundless
Devoid of the clouds of deadly grief.
March ahead O dearest life,
Towards the road that appears endless
Follow the paces of invisible time -
Until its dusk, yet another night! — Preeth Nambiar

American Jihad
I've heard the lullabies of celestial spheres,
the songs of clouds which falls like tears,
sang paeans of praise to anthem skies,
in soulful strains of knee-jerk lies.

I've shot children clutching Kalashnikovs,
gunned down women tossing molotovs;
'Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."'

Now the dead have camped out in my dreams,
each night I listen to their screams,
I count the lullaby stars, one-by-one,
while under my pillow I keep a gun. — Beryl Dov

Go back to that night when Divine Light, in order to illumine the darkness of men, tabernacled Himself in the world He had made ... The angels and a star caught up in the reflection of that Light, as a torch lighted by a torch, and passed it on to the watchers of sheep and the searchers of skies. And lo! As the shepherds watched their flocks about the hills of Bethlehem, they were shaken by the light of the angels And lo! As wise men from beyond the land of Media and Persia searched the heavens, the brilliance of a star, like a tabernacle lamp in the sanctuary of God's creation, beckoned them on to the stable where the star seemed to lose its light in the unearthly brilliance of the Light of the Word. — Fulton J. Sheen

Nothing can play havoc with your sense of scale better than looking deeply into the night skies. It can leave you feeling immense and privileged one minute, minuscule and insignificant the next. — Brian Hodge

I will look at you in the darkness of the night, where there are no colours to fill my eyes and where there are no frames that would define your shape. In the silence, I will seek the warmth of the night in your memories and sleep holding tight those orphan dreams. O dear, amidst the cloudy skies, where did you disappear? — Preeth Nambiar

Injustice alone can shake down the pillars of the skies, and restore the reign of Chaos and Night. — Horace Mann

When Freedom from her mountain-height Unfurled her standard to the air, She tore the azure robe of night, And set the stars of glory there. She mingled with its gorgeous dyes The milky baldric of the skies, And striped its pure, celestial white With streakings of the morning light. Flag of the free heart's hope and home! By angel hands to valour given! Thy stars have lit the welkin dome, And all thy hues were born in heaven. Forever float that standard sheet! Where breathes the foe but falls before us, With Freedom's soil beneath our feet, And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us? — Joseph Rodman Drake

When Cynthia smiles," said young Bingo, "the skies are blue; the world takes on a roseate hue; birds in the garden trill and sing, and Joy is king of everything, when Cynthia smiles." He coughed, changing gears. "When Cynthia frowns - "
"What the devil are you talking about?"
"I'm reading you my poem. The one I wrote to Cynthia last night. I'll go on, shall I?"
"No!"
"No?"
"No. I haven't had my tea. — P.G. Wodehouse

Summer explodes into Portland. In early June the heat was there but not the color
the green were still pale and tentative, the morning had a biting coolness
but by the last week of school everything is Technicolor and splash, outrageous blue skies and purple thunderstorms and ink-black night skies and red flowers as brights as spots of blood. — Lauren Oliver

I see trees of green, red roses too. I see them bloom for me and you. And I think to myself what a wonderful world. I see skies of blue and clouds of white. The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night. And I think to myself what a wonderful world — Louis Armstrong

Night is done, gone the moon, gone the stars
From the skies.
Fades the black of night
Comes the morn with rosy light.
Fold your wings, go to sleep,
Rest your gizzards, Safe you'll be for the day.
Glaux is nigh.
Far away is first black,
But it shall seep back
Over field
Over flower
In the twilight hour.
We are home in our tree.
We are owls, we are free.
As we go, this we know
Glaux is nigh. — Kathryn Lasky

To hear the lark begin his flight, And singing startle the dull Night, From his watch-tower in the skies, Till the dappled dawn doth rise. — John Milton

It rained last night heavily, and now the skies are beginning to clear; it is a new fresh day. Let us meet that fresh day as if it were the only day. Let us start on our journey together with all the remembrance of yesterday left behind - and begin to understand ourselves for the first time. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

Blue skies or dark night, one truth still holds: God has you. And this is the promise He has made to you: He will never let you go. — Angela Thomas

So in America when the sun goes down and I sit on the old broken-down river pier watching the long, long skies over New Jersey and sense all that raw land that rolls in one unbelievable huge bulge over to the West Coast, and all that road going, and all the people dreaming in the immensity of it, and in Iowa I know by now the children must be crying in the land where they let the children cry, and tonight the stars'll be out, and don't you know that God is Pooh Bear? the evening star must be drooping and shedding her sparkler dims on the prairie, which is just before the coming of complete night that blesses the earth, darkens all the rivers, cups the peaks and folds the final shore in, and nobody, nobody knows what's going to happen to anybody besides the forlorn rags of growing old, I think of Dean Moriarty, I even think of Old Dean Moriarty the father we never found, I think of Dean Moriarty. — Jack Kerouac

But filled with one of those unreasonable exultations which start generally from an unknown cause, and sweep whole countries and skies into their embrace, she walked without seeing. The night was encroaching upon the day. Her ears hummed with the tunes she had played the night before; she sang, and the singing made her walk faster and faster. She did not see distinctly where she was going, the trees and the landscape appearing only as masses of green and blue, with an occasional space of differently coloured sky. Faces of people she had seen last night came before her; she heard their voices; she stopped singing, and began saying things over again or saying things differently, or inventing things that might have been said. The constraint of being among strangers in a long silk dress made it unusually exciting to stride thus alone. — Virginia Woolf

Maybe life is all about twirling under one of those midnight skies,
cutting a swathe through the breeze
and gently closing your eyes. — Sanober Khan

The one outside of life we always were in the end, all our long vain life long. Who is not spared by the mad need to speak, to think, to know where one is, where one was, during the wild dream, up above, under the skies, venturing forth at night. The one ignorant of himself and silent, ignorant of his silence and silent, who could not be and gave up trying. Who crouches in their midst who see themselves in him and in their eyes stares his unchanging stare. — Samuel Beckett

And because mere walls and windows must soon drive to madness a man who dreams and reads much, the dweller in that room used night after night to lean out and peer aloft to glimpse some fragment of things beyond the waking world and the greyness of tall cities. After years he began to call the slow-sailing stars by name, and to follow them in fancy when they glided regretfully out of sight; till at length his vision opened to many secret vistas whose existence no common eye suspects. And one night a mighty gulf was bridged, and the dream-haunted skies swelled down to the lonely watcher's window to merge with the close air of his room and make him a part of their fabulous wonder. — H.P. Lovecraft

Strange is the night where black stars rise,
and strange moons circle through the skies,
but stranger still is
lost Carcosa. — Robert W. Chambers

Time has no meaning in the wyldwood. Day and night don't really exist here, just light and darkness, and they can be as fickle and moody as everything else. A "night" can pass in the space of a blink, or go on forever. Light and darkness will chase each other through the sky, play hide-and-seek or tag or catch-me-if-you-can. Sometimes, one or the other will become offended ... and refuse to come out for an indefinite amount of time. Once, light became so angry, a hundred years passed in the mortal realm before it deigned to come out again. And though the sun continued to rise and set in the human world, it was a rather turbulent period for the world of men, as all the creatures who lurked in darkness and shadow got to roam freely under the lightless Nevernever skies. — Julie Kagawa

Skies, thought Old Bailey, in a satisfied sort of a way. Never a two of them alike. Not by day nor not by night, neither. — Neil Gaiman

Sombre and rich, the skies;
Great glooms, and starry plains.
Gently the night wind sighs;
Else a vast silence reigns. — Lionel Johnson

Already he felt her absence from these skies: on the beach he could only remember the sun-torn flesh of her shoulder; at Tarmes he crushed out her footprints as he crossed the garden; and now the orchestra launching into the Nice Carnival Song, an echo of last year's vanished gaieties, started the little dance that went on all about her. In a hundred hours she had come to possess all the world's dark magic; the blinding belladonna, the caffein converting physical into nervous energy, the mandragora that imposes harmony. — F Scott Fitzgerald

It is winter proper; the cold weather, such as it is, has come to stay. I bloom indoors in the winter like a forced forsythia; I come in to come out. At night I read and write, and things I have never understood become clear; I reap the harvest of the rest of the year's planting.
The woods are acres of sticks: I could walk to the Gulf of Mexico in a straight line. When the leaves fall, the striptease is over; things stand mute and revealed. Everywhere skies extend, vistas deepen, walls become windows, doors open. — Annie Dillard

So you find Miss Mercer beautiful?"
The buzzing in Spencer's head formed the words, "'She walks in beauty like the night/Of cloudless climes and starry skies.'"
"My God, now you're quoting poetry."
Had he said that aloud? Bloody hell. Spencer brandished his empty mug at his brother. "I always quote verse when I'm foxed."
"You must be very foxed to quote that idiot Byron. Or very impressed by Miss Mercer's looks. — Sabrina Jeffries

Facilis descensus Averno:
Noctes atque dies patet atri ianua Ditis;
Sed revocare gradium superasque evadere ad auras,
Hoc opus, hic labor est.
(The gates of Hell are open night and day;
Smooth the descent, and easy is the way:
But to return, and view the cheerful skies,
In this task and mighty labor lies.) — Virgil

Sun drifts, moon breaches, cool air whispers into the night. Tears fall, arms comfort, birds in the distance take flight. Waning crescent, smother my cries, take me up to the inky skies." She — Melissa Foster

The flower that smiles today
Tomorrow dies;
All that we wish to stay
Tempts and then flies;
What is this world's delight?
Lightning, that mocks the night,
Brief even as bright.--

Virtue, how frail it is!--
Friendship, how rare!--
Love, how it sells poor bliss
For proud despair!
But these though they soon fall,
Survive their joy, and all
Which ours we call.--

Whilst skies are blue and bright,
Whilst flowers are gay,
Whilst eyes that change ere night
Make glad the day;

Whilst yet the calm hours creep,
Dream thou - and from thy sleep
Then wake to weep. — Percy Bysshe Shelley

What makes Argia different from other cities is that it has earth instead of air. The streets are completely filled with dirt, clay packs the rooms to the ceiling, on every stair another stairway is set in negative, over the roofs of the houses hang layers of rocky terrain like skies with clouds. We do not know if the inhabitants can move about the city, widening the worm tunnels and the crevices where roots twist: the dampness destroys people's bodies and they have scant strength; everyone is better off remaining still, prone; anyway, it is dark.
From up here, nothing of Argia can be seen; some say, "It's down below there," and we can only believe them. The place is deserted. At night, putting your ear to the ground, you can sometimes hear a door slam. — Italo Calvino

Half the night I waste in sighs, Half in dreams I sorrow after The delight of early skies; In a wakeful dose I sorrow For the hand, the lips, the eyes, For the meeting of the morrow, The delight of happy laughter, The delight of low replies. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

Nurse's Song
WHEN the voices of children are heard on the green,
And laughing is heard on the hill,
My heart is at rest within my breast,
And everything else is still.
Then come home, my children, the sun is gone down,
And the dews of night arise;
Come, come, leave off play, and let us away
Till the morning appears in the skies.
No, no, let us play, for it is yet day,
And we cannot go to sleep;
Besides, in the sky the little birds fly,
And the hills are all cover'd with sheep.
Well, well, go and play till the light fades away,
And then go home to bed.'
The little ones leaped and shouted and laugh'd
And all the hills echoed. — William Blake

Something about the time of year depressed him deeply. Overcast skies and cutting wind, leaves falling, dusk falling, dark too soon, night flying down before you are ready. It's a terror. It's a bareness of the soul. He hears the rustle of nuns. Here comes winter in the bone. We've set it loose on the land. There must be some song or poem, some folk magic we can use to ease this fear. Skelly Bone Pete. Here it is in the landscape and sky. We've set it loose. We've opened up the ground and here it is. He took Interstate 45 south. He didn't want them to kill Leon. He felt a saturating sense of death, a dread in the soft filling of his bones, the suckable part, approaching Galveston now. — Don DeLillo

When stars are in the quiet skies, Then most I pine for thee; Bend on me, then, thy tender eyes, As stars look on the sea. — Ernst Gottlieb Baron

The 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 ev'ry shade. — Alexander Pope

After winter comes the summer. After night comes the dawn. And after every storm, there comes clear, open skies. — Samuel Rutherford

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.6 — John Dickson

Thank you for the day and night,
for rainy spells and summer's light.
Thank you for the skies of blue
and puffy clouds in grayish hue.
Thank you for the gigglefests
and midnight's cloak to hasten rest.
Thank you for tomorrow new
and yesterday's tomorrow too.
Thank you for "I'm glad we met"
and also for "we haven't yet."
Thank you for the peace of mind
a grateful soul doth always find. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Mine is the sultry sunset when the skies
Tremble with strange, intolerable thunder:
And at the dead of an hushed night, these eyes
Draw down the soaring oracles winged with wonder — Lionel Pigot Johnson

As long as skies are blue, and fields are green
Evening must usher night, night urge the morrow,
Month follow month with woe, and year wake year to sorrow — Percy Bysshe Shelley

Before him, numberless lovers smiled and talked. And death was observed with sudden cries, And birth with laughter and pain. And the trees grew taller and blacker against the skies And night came down again. — Conrad Aiken

For all the tenure of humans on Earth, the night sky had been a companion and an inspiration. The stars were comforting. They seemed to demonstrate that the heavens were created for the benefit and instruction of humans. This pathetic conceit became the conventional wisdom worldwide. No culture was free of it. Some people found in the skies an aperture to the religious sensibility. Many were awestruck and humbled by the glory and scale of the cosmos. Others were stimulated to the most extravagant flights of fancy. — Carl Sagan

The Wolf trots to and fro,
The world lies deep in snow,
The raven from the birch tree flies,
But nowhere a hare, nowhere a roe,
The roe -she is so dear, so sweet -
If such a thing I might surprise
In my embrace, my teeth would meet,
What else is there beneath the skies?
The lovely creature I would so treasure,
And feast myself deep on her tender thigh,
I would drink of her red blood full measure,
Then howl till the night went by.
Even a hare I would not despise;
Sweet enough its warm flesh in the night.
Is everything to be denied
That could make life a little bright?
The hair on my brush is getting grey.
The sight is failing from my eyes.
Years ago my dear mate died.
And now I trot and dream of a roe.
I trot and dream of a hare.
I hear the wind of midnight howl.
I cool with the snow my burning jowl,
And on to the devil my wretched soul I bear. — Hermann Hesse

It's been said that the Magi, wise men, gazed up into the night skies, following a star. But they were not looking for a star. They were looking for hope. Hope of a new world. Hope of redemption. Light is not found in dark places, & hope is not found looking down or looking back. May you always look up. — Richard Paul Evans

As the morning sun rises bringing needed light to our world ... let me worship you Lord and as the moon illuminates the darken night skies ... let me sing a praise of your greatness! — Timothy Pina

Tegner's Drapa

I heard a voice that faintly said
"Balder the beautiful lies dead, lies dead . . ."
a voice like the flight of white cranes overhead -
ghostly, haunting the sun, life-abetting,
but a sun now irretrievably setting.

Then I saw the sun's carcass, blackened with flies,
fall into night's darkness, to nevermore rise,
borne grotesquely to Hel through disconsolate skies
as blasts from the Nifel-heim rang out with dread,
"Balder lies dead, gentle Balder lies dead! . . ."

Lost, lost forever - the runes of his tongue;
the blithe warmth of his smile; his bright face, cherished, young;
the lithe grace of his figure, all the girls' hearts undone
O, what god could have dreamed such strange words might be said
as "Balder lies dead, our fair Balder lies dead! — Esaias Tegner

My room was in one of those turrets and at night I could hear the sea and the faint rustle of eelgrass in the soft wind. The weather was perfect that summer. No storms. Blue skies and just the right amount of wind every day. The sailors were in heaven. — Katherine Hall Page

I used to love history class. I can still quote whole passages by heart: "When the emperor entered the Hall of Balming Virtue, a violent wind came from a dark corner, and out of it slithered a giant serpent that coiled around the throne. The emperor fainted, and that night earthquakes struck Loyang, and waves swept the shores, and cranes shrieked in the marshes. On the fifth day of the sixth moon a long trail of black mist floated into the Hall of Concubines, and hot and cold became confused, and a hen turned into a rooster, and a woman turned into a man, and flesh fell from the skies." Now, that is grand stuff, just the thing to give to growing boys, and then we were old enough to read the greatest of all historians. This is what Ssu-ma Ch'ien had to say about the exact same subject: "The Chou Dynasty was nearing collapse." Bah. — Barry Hughart

Before the day there was only endless night. When the stars rained down from the skies, and giants and other unfathomable creatures roamed the land, there was a goddess who ruled over them all because she had been clever enough to figure out the secret of time and how to walk between worlds. — Scarlett Amaris

One day, all those who love in the society of Auld Lang Syne shall meet again. In the New City of the Burning Heart, there, the veil will drop. The arc of the seas shall finally know the skies. Day and night shall end. The clock tower will crumble. Time shall fly to the place of no more. For we were born for meaning. We were born to love. There, we shall all be together with all the lovelies ever known who chose mercy and kindness amidst the forget-me-nots and the countless stars. — David Paul Kirkpatrick

Each of us is born to follow a star, be it bright and shining or dark and fated. Sometimes the path of these stars will cross, bringing love or hatred. However, if you look up at the skies on a clear night, out of all the countless lights that twinkle and shine, there will come one. That star will be seen in a blaze, burning a path of light across the roof of the earth, a great comet. — Brian Jacques

Who gave you the ability to contemplate the beauty of the skies, the course of the sun, the round moon, the millions of stars, the harmony and rhythm that issue from the world as from a lyre, the return of the seasons, the alternation of the months, the demarcation of day and night, the fruits of the earth, the vastness of the air, the ceaseless motion of the waves, the sound of the wind? — Gregory Of Nazianzus

The Silk Worm
I stood before a silk worm one day.
And that night my heart said to me,
"I can do things like that, I can spin skies,
I can be woven into love that can bring warmth to people;
I can be soft against a crying face,
I can be wings that lift, and I can travel on my thousand feet
throughout the earth, my sacs filled with the sacred."
And I replied to my heart,
"Dear, can you really do all those things?"
And it just nodded "Yes" in silence.
So we began and will never cease. — Rumi

The great miraculous bell of translucent ice is suspended in mid-air.
It rings to announce endings and beginnings. And it rings because there is fresh promise and wonder in the skies.
Its clear tones resound in the placid silence of the winter day, and echo long into the silver-blue serenity of night.
The bell can only be seen at the turning of the year, when the days wind down into nothing, and get ready to march out again.
When you hear the bell, you feel a tug at your heart.
It is your immortal inspiration. — Vera Nazarian

He was there alone with himself, collected, tranquil, adoring, comparing the serenity of his heart with the serenity of the skies, moved in the darkness by the visible splendors of the constellations, and the invisible splendor of God, opening his soul to the thoughts which fall from the Unknown. In such moments, offering up his heart at the hour when the flowers of night inhale their perfume, lighted like a lamp in the center of the starry night, expanding his soul in ecstasy in the midst of the universal radiance of creation, he could not himself perhaps have told what was passing in his own mind; he felt something depart from him, and something descend upon him, mysterious interchanges of the depths of the soul with the depths of the universe. — Victor Hugo

In the water is a woman of such beauty that her skin is paler than the white marble and her hair is darker than the night skies. He falls in love with her at once, and she with him, and he takes her to the castle and makes her his wife. — Philippa Gregory

After midday, the rain eased, and the Land Rover rode into Pokhara on a shaft of storm light. Next day there was humid sun and shifting southern skies, but to the north a deep tumult of swirling grays was all that could be seen of the Himalaya. At dusk, white egrets flapped across the sunken clouds, now black with rain; on earth, the dark had come. Then four miles above these mud streets of the lowlands, at a point so high as to seem overhead, a luminous whiteness shone- the light of snows. Glaciers loomed and vanished in the grays, and the sky parted, and the snow cone of Machhapuchare glistened like a spire of a higher kingdom. In the night, the stars convened, and the vast ghost of Machhapuchare radiated light, although there was no moon. — Peter Matthiessen

All-out. Thaumaturgical. War. And there were of course no alliances, no sides, no deals, no mercy, no cease. The skies twisted, the seas boiled. The scream and whizz of fireballs turned the night into day, but that was all right because the ensuing clouds of black smoke turned the day into night. The landscape rose and fell like a honeymoon duvet, and the very fabric of space itself was tied in multidimensional knots and bashed on a flat stone down by the river of Time. — Terry Pratchett

He was out there alone with himself, composed, tranquil, adoring, comparing the serenity of his heart to the serenity of the skies, moved in the darkness by the visible splendors of the constellations and the invisible splendor of God, opening his soul to the thoughts that fall from the Unknown. In such moments, offering up his heart as the flowers of night emit their perfume, lit like a lamp in the center of the starry night, expanding in ecstasy the midst of creation's universal radiance, perhaps he could not have told what was happening in his own mind; he felt something floating away from him, and something descending upon him, mysterious exchanges of the soul with the universe. — Victor Hugo

I saw it from that hidden, silent place
Where the old wood half shuts the meadow in.
It shone through all the sunset's glories - thin
At first, but with a slowly brightening face.
Night came, and that lone beacon, amber-hued,
Beat on my sight as never it did of old;
The evening star - but grown a thousandfold
More haunting in this hush and solitude.
It traced strange pictures on the quivering air -
Half-memories that had always filled my eyes -
Vast towers and gardens; curious seas and skies
Of some dim life - I never could tell where.
But I knew that through the cosmic dome
Those rays were calling from my far, lost home. — H.P. Lovecraft

They say a good love is one that sits you down, gives you a drink of water, and pats you on top of the head. But I say a good love is one that casts you into the wind, sets you ablaze, makes you burn through the skies and ignite the night like a phoenix; the kind that cuts you loose like a wildfire and you can't stop running simply because you keep on burning everything that you touch! I say that's a good love; one that burns and flies, and you run with it! — C. JoyBell C.

The sky is deep, the sky is dark. The light of the stars is o damn stark/When I look up, I fill with fear, if all we have is what lies here, this lonely world, this troubled place, then cold dead stars and empty space ... Well, I see no reason to persevere, no reason to laugh or shed a tear, no reason to sleep and none to wake/ No promises to keep and none to make. And so at night I still raise my eyes tos tudy the clear but mysterious skies that arch avove us, cold as stone. Are you there God? Are we alone? — Dean Koontz

The reappearance of the crescent moon after the new moon; the return of the Sun after a total eclipse, the rising of the Sun in the morning after its troublesome absence at night were noted by people around the world; these phenomena spoke to our ancestors of the possibility of surviving death. Up there in the skies was also a metaphor of immortality. — Carl Sagan

The night wears on; the fire dwindles; the wind shifts and my heart aches with nostalgia - summer camps and catching lightning bugs and August skies aflame with stars. The way the desert smells and the long, wistful sigh of wind rushing down from the mountains as the sun dips beneath the horizon. — Rick Yancey

On the Gallows Once
Kofi Awoonor

I crossed quite a few
of your rivers, my gods,
into this plain where thirst reigns
I heard the cry of mourners
the long cooing of the African wren at dusk
the laughter of the children at dawn
had long ceased
night comes fast in our land
where indeed are the promised vistas
the open fields, blue skies, the singing birds
and abiding love?
History records acts
of heroism, barbarism
of some who had power
and abused it massively
of some whose progenitors
planned for them
the secure state of madness
from which no storm can shake them;
of some who took the last ships
disembarked on some far-off shores and forgot
of some who simply laid down the load
and went home to the ancestors — Kofi Awoonor

What is this life if full of care? We have no time to stand and stare. No time to stand beneath the boughs and stare as long as sheep or cows, no time to see, when woods we pass, where squirrels hide their nuts in grass, no time to see, in broad daylight, streams full of stars, like skies at night, no time to turn at Beauty's glance and watch her feet and how they can dance, no time to wait till her mouth can enrich that smile her eyes began. A poor life this if full of care, we have no time to stand and stare. — W.H. Davies