Twilight

illumination of the Earth's lower atmosphere when the Sun itself is not directly visible because it is below the horizon
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.

The west is broken into bars
Of orange, gold, and gray,
Gone is the sun, come are the stars,
And night infolds the day

Quotes

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  • 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.
  • 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.
  • '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    Which, if withdrawn, would but disclose the frown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.
  • Beauteous Night lay dead
    Under the pall of twilight, and the love-star
    sickened and shrank.
  • 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.
  • But look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,
    Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill.
  • The hour before the heavenly-harness'd team
    Begins his golden progress in the east.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922)

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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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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!
  • The lengthening shadows wait
    The first pale stars of twilight.
  • The gloaming comes, the day is spent,
    The sun goes out of sight,
    And painted is the Occident
    With purple sanguine bright.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • The west is broken into bars
    Of orange, gold, and gray,
    Gone is the sun, come are the stars,
    And night infolds the day.
  • Dim eclipse, disastrous twilight.
  • From that high mount of God whence light and shade
    Spring both, the face of brightest heaven had changed
    To grateful twilight.
  • 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.
  • * * * 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.
  • Night was drawing and closing her curtain up above the world, and down beneath it.
  • 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.
  • Twilight, a timid fawn, went glimmering by.
    And Night, the dark-blue hunter, followed fast.
  • Her feet along the dewy hills
    Are lighter than blown thistledown,
    She bears the glamour of one star
    Upon her violet crown.
  • Then the nun-like twilight came, violet-vestured and still,
    And the night's first star outshone afar 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.
  • Her eyes as stars of twilight fair,
    Like twilight's too her dusky hair.
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