Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Midnight
Is there not
A tongue in every star that talks with man,
And wooes him to be wise? nor wooes in vain;
This dead of midnight is the noon of thought,
And wisdom mounts her zenith with the stars.
Anna Letitia Barbauld—A Summer Evening’s Meditation. L. 48.
That hour o’ night’s black arch the keystane.
Burns—Tam o’ Shanter.
It was evening here,
But upon earth the very noon of night.
Dante—Purgatorio. Canto XV. L. 5.
I stood on the bridge at midnight,
As the clocks were striking the hour,
And the moon rose over the city,
Behind the dark church tower.
Longfellow—Bridge.
Midnight! the outpost of advancing day!
The frontier town and citadel of night!
Longfellow—Two Rivers. Pt. I.
O wild and wondrous midnight,
There is a might in thee
To make the charmed body
Almost like spirit be,
And give it some faint glimpses
Of immortality!
Lowell—Midnight.
’Tis midnight now. The bent and broken moon,
Batter’d and black, as from a thousand battles,
Hangs silent on the purple walls of Heaven.
Joaquin Miller—Ina. Sc. 2.
Soon as midnight brought on the dusky hour
Friendliest to sleep and silence.
Milton—Paradise Lost. Bk. V. L. 667.
The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve;
Lovers, to bed; ’tis almost fairy time.
Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act V. Sc. 1. L. 370.
Midnight, yet not a nose
From Tower Hill to Piccadilly snored!
Horace and James Smith—Rejected Addresses. The Rebuilding. (Imitation of Southey.)
Midnight, and yet no eye
Through all the Imperial City closed in sleep.
Southey—Curse of Kehama. Pt. I. 1.