Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Sunset
Come watch with me the shaft of fire that glows
In yonder West: the fair, frail palaces,
The fading Alps and archipelagoes,
And great cloud-continents of sunset-seas.
T. B. Aldrich—Sonnet. Miracles.
The death-bed of a day, how beautiful!
Bailey—Festus. Sc. A Library and Balcony.
It was the cooling hour, just when the rounded
Red sun sinks down behind the azure hill,
Which then seems as if the whole earth is bounded,
Circling all nature, hush’d, and dim, and still,
With the far mountain-crescent half surrounded
On one side, and the deep sea calm and chill
Upon the other, and the rosy sky
With one star sparkling through it like an eye.
Byron—Don Juan. Canto II. St. 183.
See! he sinks
Without a word; and his ensanguined bier
Is vacant in the west, while far and near
Behold! each coward shadow eastward shrinks,
Thou dost not strive, O sun, nor dost thou cry
Amid thy cloud-built streets.
Faber—The Rosary and Other Poems. On the Ramparts at Angoulême.
The sacred lamp of day
Now dipt in western clouds his parting ray.
Falconer—The Shipwreck. Canto II. L. 27.
Oft did I wonder why the setting sun
Should look upon us with a blushing face:
Is’t not for shame of what he hath seen done,
Whilst in our hemisphere he ran his race?
Heath—First Century. On the Setting Sun.
Forming and breaking in the sky,
I fancy all shapes are there;
Temple, mountain, monument, spire;
Ships rigged out with sails of fire,
And blown by the evening air.
J. K. Hoyt—A Summer Sunset.
Down sank the great red sun, and in golden, glimmering vapors
Veiled the light of his face, like the Prophet descending from Sinai.
Longfellow—Evangeline. Pt. I. Sec. IV.
Softly the evening came. The sun from the western horizon
Like a magician extended his golden wand o’er the landscape;
Twinkling vapors arose; and sky and water and forest
Seemed all on fire at the touch, and melted and mingled together.
Longfellow—Evangeline. Pt. II. Sec. II.
After a day of cloud and wind and rain
Sometimes the setting sun breaks out again,
And, touching all the darksome woods with light,
Smiles on the fields until they laugh and sing,
Then like a ruby from the horizon’s ring,
Drops down into the night.
Longfellow—Hanging of the Crane. Pt. VII.
And the gilded car of day,
His glowing axle doth allay
In the steep Atlantic stream.
Milton—Comus. L. 95.
Now in his Palace of the West,
Sinking to slumber, the bright Day,
Like a tired monarch fann’d to rest,
’Mid the cool airs of Evening lay;
While round his couch’s golden rim
The gaudy clouds, like courtiers, crept—
Struggling each other’s light to dim,
And catch his last smile e’er he slept.
Moore—The Summer Fête. St. 22.
Long on the wave reflected lustres play.
Samuel Rogers—The Pleasures of Memory. Pt. I. L. 94.
Methought little space ’tween those hills intervened,
But nearer,—more lofty,—more shaggy they seemed.
The clouds o’er their summits they calmly did rest,
And hung on the ether’s invisible breast;
Than the vapours of earth they seemed purer, more bright,—
Oh! could they be clouds? ’Twas the necklace of night.
Ruskin—The Iteriad. Sunset at Low-Wood.
The lonely sunsets flare forlorn
Down valleys dreadly desolate;
The lonely mountains soar in scorn
As still as death, as stern as fate.
Robert Service—The Land God Forgot.
The setting sun, and music at the close,
At the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last.
Richard II. Act II. Sc. 1. L. 12.
When the sun sets, who doth not look for night?
Richard III. Act II. Sc. 3. L. 34.
The sun was down,
And all the west was paved with sullen fire.
I cried, “Behold! the barren beach of hell
At ebb of tide.”
Alexander Smith—A Life Drama. Sc. 4.
How fine has the day been! how bright was the sun,
How lovely and joyful the course that he run!
Though he rose in a mist when his race he begun,
And there followed some droppings of rain:
But now the fair traveller’s come to the west,
His rays are all gold, and his beauties are best;
He paints the skies gay as he sinks to his rest,
And foretells a bright rising again.
Watts—Moral Songs. A Summer Evening.