“
Sing me no songs of daylight,
For the sun is the enemy of lovers
Sing instead of shadows and darkness,
And memories of midnight
”
”
Sidney Sheldon
“
A Second Childhood.”
When all my days are ending
And I have no song to sing,
I think that I shall not be too old
To stare at everything;
As I stared once at a nursery door
Or a tall tree and a swing.
Wherein God’s ponderous mercy hangs
On all my sins and me,
Because He does not take away
The terror from the tree
And stones still shine along the road
That are and cannot be.
Men grow too old for love, my love,
Men grow too old for wine,
But I shall not grow too old to see
Unearthly daylight shine,
Changing my chamber’s dust to snow
Till I doubt if it be mine.
Behold, the crowning mercies melt,
The first surprises stay;
And in my dross is dropped a gift
For which I dare not pray:
That a man grow used to grief and joy
But not to night and day.
Men grow too old for love, my love,
Men grow too old for lies;
But I shall not grow too old to see
Enormous night arise,
A cloud that is larger than the world
And a monster made of eyes.
Nor am I worthy to unloose
The latchet of my shoe;
Or shake the dust from off my feet
Or the staff that bears me through
On ground that is too good to last,
Too solid to be true.
Men grow too old to woo, my love,
Men grow too old to wed;
But I shall not grow too old to see
Hung crazily overhead
Incredible rafters when I wake
And I find that I am not dead.
A thrill of thunder in my hair:
Though blackening clouds be plain,
Still I am stung and startled
By the first drop of the rain:
Romance and pride and passion pass
And these are what remain.
Strange crawling carpets of the grass,
Wide windows of the sky;
So in this perilous grace of God
With all my sins go I:
And things grow new though I grow old,
Though I grow old and die.
”
”
G.K. Chesterton (The Collected Poems of G. K. Chesterton)
“
And today is really the happiest day of your life, because today you woke up and stumbled across the shadow of your soul in broad daylight."
From Central Park Song: a Screenplay
”
”
Zack Love (Stories and Scripts: an Anthology)
“
They were a delicious bunch but always forgetting the sensible things like food and daylight and remembering only the more intoxicating ones like love and gin.
”
”
Rachel Joyce (The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy (Harold Fry, #2))
“
I dreamed... in the black of night a man asks all the questions he dare not ask by daylight. For me, the past years, only one question has remained. Why would the gods take my eyes and my strength, yet condemn me to linger on so long, frozen and forgotten? What use could they have for an old done man like me? ... I remember, Sam. I still remember.
Remember what?
Dragons, Aemon whispered.
”
”
George R.R. Martin (A Feast for Crows (A Song of Ice and Fire, #4))
“
We had become a race of eccentrics and openly declared an array of singular whims and suspicions, at least while daylight allowed this audacity.
”
”
Thomas Ligotti (Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe)
“
And he will also find the little god whom girls like best: beside the well he lies, still, with his eyes shut. Verily, in bright daylight he fell asleep, the sluggard! Did he chase after the butterflies too much?... He may cry and weep - but he is laughable even when he weeps. And with tears in his eyes he shall ask you for a dance and I myself will sing a song for his dance: a dancing and mocking song on the spirit of gravity... (p.108 - The Dancing Song)
”
”
Friedrich Nietzsche (Thus Spoke Zarathustra)
“
Halflings! But they are only a little people in old songs and children’s tales out of the North. Do we walk in legends or on the green earth in the daylight?’ ‘A man may do both,’ said Aragorn. ‘For not we but those who come after will make the legends of our time.
”
”
J.R.R. Tolkien (The Lord of the Rings)
“
in the black of night a man asks all the questions he dare not ask by daylight.
”
”
George R.R. Martin (A Song of Ice and Fire, 5-Book Boxed Set: A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, A Feast for Crows, A Dance with Dragons (Song of Ice & Fire 1-5))
“
Week by week, month by month, it slowly faded, though even when it moved back into the daylight sky it was still easy to find if one knew exactly where to look. And at night for years it was often the brightest of the stars.
Mirissa saw it one last time, just before her eyesight failed.
”
”
Arthur C. Clarke (Songs of Distant Earth)
“
The Home”
I paced alone on the road across the field while the sunset was hiding its last gold like a miser.
The daylight sank deeper and deeper into the darkness, and the widowed land, whose harvest had been reaped, lay silent.
Suddenly a boy’s shrill voice rose into the sky. He traversed the dark unseen, leaving the track of his song across the hush of the evening.
His village home lay there at the end of the wasteland, beyond the sugar-cane field, hidden among the shadows of the banana and the slender areca palm, the coconut and the dark green jack-fruit trees.
I stopped for a moment in my lonely way under the starlight, and saw spread before me the darkened earth surrounding with her arms countless homes furnished with cradles and beds, mothers’ hearts and evening lamps, and young lives glad with a gladness that knows nothing of its value for the world.
”
”
Rabindranath Tagore (Collected Poems and Plays of Rabindranath Tagore)
“
The poem and song “The Happy Day of Svante” by Benny Andersen is famous in Denmark. It’s all about savoring the moment and enjoying simple pleasures: “Look, real daylight soon. Red sun and waning moon. She takes a shower for me. Me whom it’s good to be. Life’s not bad, for it’s all we have got. And the coffee’s almost hot.
”
”
Meik Wiking (The Little Book of Hygge: Danish Secrets to Happy Living)
“
11:48 P.M. Central Daylight Time NEAR WICHITA, KANSAS
”
”
Robert McCammon (Swan Song)
“
Lift up your dark heart and sing a song about
how time drifts past you like the gentlest, almost
imperceptible breeze.
— Jim Harrison, from “Cold Poem,” Saving Daylight. (Copper Canyon Press 2006)
”
”
Jim Harrison (Saving Daylight)
“
Song of the Barren Orange Tree"
Woodcutter.
Cut out my shadow.
Free me from the torture
of seeing myself fruitless.
Why was I born among mirrors?
The daylight revolves around me.
And the night herself repeats me
in all her constellations.
I want to live not seeing self.
I shall dream the husks and insects
change inside my dreaming
into my birds and foliage.
Woodcutter.
Cut out my shadow.
Free me from the torture
”
”
Federico García Lorca (Collected Poems)
“
AWAKENING To open both your drowsy eyes, To stretch your limbs and realise That day is here. To watch the dancing, shifting beam Of sun, awake yet half in dream, Uncertain if the fitful gleam Be far or near. To turn with soft, contented sigh, And through the window watch the sky, All opal blue. To feel the air steal in the room, Made fragrant by the soft perfume Of lime-trees, when their scented bloom Is damp with dew. To hear the rustling voice of leaves, The chirp of birds beneath the eaves, But now awake. The tiny hum of timid things That fly with gauzy, fragile wings, Where yet the dusk to daylight clings, When mornings break. To feel the soul look forth and smile, Contented with each fruitful mile That it beholds. To hear the heart beat loud and strong, In unison with Nature's song, That echoes tremulous and long While dawn unfolds. To know yourself a thing complete, With strength of mind and limb replete, With vast desire; A creature made to dominate The lesser things of earth, a fate On whom the universe must wait, With force entire. And then to cry in deep delight God made the world and made it right; Dear Heaven above! Was ere completeness so complete, Was ever sweetness half so sweet, Was ever loving half so meet; Thank God for love.
”
”
Radclyffe Hall (The Poetry Of Radclyffe Hall - Volume 2 - 'Twixt Earth and Stars: "…we're all part of nature, some day the world will recognise this…")
“
The Reverie of Poor Susan
AT the corner of Wood Street, when daylight appears,
Hangs a Thrush that sings loud, it has sung for three years:
Poor Susan has pass’d by the spot, and has heard
In the silence of morning the song of the bird.
’Tis a note of enchantment; what ails her? She sees
A mountain ascending, a vision of trees;
Bright volumes of vapour through Lothbury glide,
And a river flows on through the vale of Cheapside.
Green pastures she views in the midst of the dale
Down which she so often has tripp’d with her pail;
And a single small cottage, a nest like a dove’s,
The one only dwelling on earth that she loves.
She looks, and her heart is in heaven: but they fade,
The mist and the river, the hill and the shade;
The stream will not flow, and the hill will not rise,
And the colours have all pass’d away from her eyes!
”
”
William Wordsworth
“
Not this time, Sam. I dreamed . . . in the black of night a man asks all the questions he dare not ask by daylight. For me, these past years, only one question has remained. Why would the gods take my eyes and my strength, yet condemn me to linger on so long, frozen and forgotten? What use could they have for an old done man like me?” Aemon’s fingers trembled, twigs sheathed in spotted skin. “I remember, Sam. I still remember.” He was not making sense. “Remember what?” “Dragons,” Aemon whispered. “The grief and glory of my House, they were.” “The last dragon died before you were born,” said Sam. “How could you remember them?” “I see them in my dreams, Sam. I see a red star bleeding in the sky. I still remember red. I see their shadows on the snow, hear the crack of leathern wings, feel their hot breath. My brothers dreamed of dragons too, and the dreams killed them, every one. Sam, we tremble on the cusp of half-remembered prophecies, of wonders and terrors that no man now living could hope to comprehend . . . or . . .” “Or?” said Sam. “. . . or not.” Aemon chuckled softly. “Or I am an old man, feverish and dying.” He closed his white eyes wearily, then forced them open once again. “I should not have left the Wall. Lord Snow could not have known, but I should have seen it. Fire consumes, but cold preserves. The Wall . . . but it is too late to go running back. The Stranger waits outside my door and will not be denied. Steward, you have served me faithfully. Do this one last brave thing for me. Go down to the ships, Sam. Learn all you can about these dragons.
”
”
George R.R. Martin (A Feast for Crows (A Song of Ice and Fire #4))
“
TIME TO SACRIFICE TAURUS
This is the night of union when the stars
scatter their rice over us. The sky is
excited! Venus cannot stop singing the little songs she's making up, like birds
in the first warm spring weather. The North Star can't quit looking over at Leo.
Pisces is stirring milky dust from the ocean floor. Jupiter rides his horse near
Saturn, "Old man, jump up behind me! The juice is coming back! Think of something
happy to shout as we go. "Mars washes his bloody sword, puts it up, and begins
building things. The Aquarian water jar fills, and the Virgin pours it generously.
The Pleiades and Libra and Aries have no
trembling in them anymore. Scorpio walks
out looking for a lover, and so does
Sagittarius! This is not crooked walking
like the Crab. This is a holiday we've been waiting for. It is finally time to
sacrifice Taurus and learn how the sky is a lens to look through. Listen to what's
inside what I say. Shams will appear at dawn; then even night will change from
its beloved animated darkness to a day
within this ordinary sweet daylight.
”
”
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi (The Soul of Rumi: A New Collection of Ecstatic Poems)
“
THE MEETING"
"Scant rain had fallen and the summer sun
Had scorched with waves of heat the ripening corn,
That August nightfall, as I crossed the down
Work-weary, half in dream. Beside a fence
Skirting a penning’s edge, an old man waited
Motionless in the mist, with downcast head
And clothing weather-worn. I asked his name
And why he lingered at so lonely a place.
“I was a shepherd here. Two hundred seasons
I roamed these windswept downlands with my flock.
No fences barred our progress and we’d travel
Wherever the bite grew deep. In summer drought
I’d climb from flower-banked combe to barrow’d hill-top
To find a missing straggler or set snares
By wood or turmon-patch. In gales of March
I’d crouch nightlong tending my suckling lambs.
“I was a ploughman, too. Year upon year
I trudged half-doubled, hands clenched to my shafts,
Guiding my turning furrow. Overhead,
Cloud-patterns built and faded, many a song
Of lark and pewit melodied my toil.
I durst not pause to heed them, rising at dawn
To groom and dress my team: by daylight’s end
My boots hung heavy, clodded with chalk and flint.
“And then I was a carter. With my skill
I built the reeded dew-pond, sliced out hay
From the dense-matted rick. At harvest time,
My wain piled high with sheaves, I urged the horses
Back to the master’s barn with shouts and curses
Before the scurrying storm. Through sunlit days
On this same slope where you now stand, my friend,
I stood till dusk scything the poppied fields.
“My cob-built home has crumbled. Hereabouts
Few folk remember me: and though you stare
Till time’s conclusion you’ll not glimpse me striding
The broad, bare down with flock or toiling team.
Yet in this landscape still my spirit lingers:
Down the long bottom where the tractors rumble,
On the steep hanging where wild grasses murmur,
In the sparse covert where the dog-fox patters.”
My comrade turned aside. From the damp sward
Drifted a scent of melilot and thyme;
From far across the down a barn owl shouted,
Circling the silence of that summer evening:
But in an instant, as I stepped towards him
Striving to view his face, his contour altered.
Before me, in the vaporous gloaming, stood
Nothing of flesh, only a post of wood.
”
”
John Rawson (From The English Countryside: Tales Of Tragedy: Narrated In Dramatic Traditional Verse)
“
When one has lived a long time alone,
one wants to live again among men and women,
to return to that place where one's ties with the human
broke, where the disquiet of death and now also
of history glimmers its firelight on faces,
where the gaze of the new baby looks past the gaze
of the great granny, and where lovers speak,
on lips blowsy from kissing, that language
the same in each mouth, and like birds at daybreak
blether the song that is both earth's and heaven's,
until the sun has risen, and they stand
in the daylight of being made one: kingdom come,
when one has lived a long time alone.
”
”
Galway Kinnell (When One Has Lived a Long Time Alone)
“
Song"
The girl with the lovely face,
goes, gathering olives.
The wind, that towering lover,
takes her by the waist.
Four riders go by
on Andalusian ponies,
in azure and emerald suits,
in long cloaks of shadow.
‘Come to Cordoba, sweetheart!’
The girl does not listen.
Three young bullfighters go by,
slim-waisted in suits of orange,
with swords of antique silver.
‘Come to Sevilla, sweetheart!’
The girl does not listen.
When the twilight purples,
with the daylight’s dying,
a young man goes by, holding
roses, and myrtle of moonlight.
‘Come to Granada, my sweetheart!’
But the girl does not listen.
The girl, with the lovely face,
goes on gathering olives,
while the wind’s grey arms
are embracing her waist.
”
”
Federico García Lorca (Collected Poems)
“
It happens surprisingly fast,
the way your shadow leaves you.
All day you’ve been linked by
the light, but now that darkness
gathers the world in a great black tide,
your shadow joins
the sea of all other shadows.
If you stand here long enough,
you, too, will forget your lines
and merge with the tall grass and
old trees, with the crows and the
flooding river—all these pieces
of the world that daylight has broken
into objects of singular loneliness.
It happens surprisingly fast, the drawing in
of your shadow, and standing
in the field, you become the field,
and standing in the night, you
are gathered by night, Invisible
birds sing to the memory of light
but then even those separate songs fade,
tiny drops of ink in an infinite spilling.
— Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, “Still Life at Dusk,” Poetry of Presence: An Anthology of Mindfulness Poems, eds. Phyllis Cole-Dai & Ruby R. Wilson (Grayson Books, 2017)
”
”
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
“
Unlike the gold which needed nothing, and must be worshipped in close-locked solitude — which was hidden away from the daylight, was deaf to the song of birds, and started to no human tones — Eppie was a creature of endless claims and ever-growing desires, seeking and loving sunshine, and living sounds, and living movements; making trial of everything, with trust in new joy, and stirring the human kindness in all eyes that looked on her. The gold had kept his thoughts in an ever-repeated circle, leading to nothing beyond itself; but Eppie was an object compacted of changes and hopes that forced his thoughts onward, and carried them far away from their old eager pacing towards the same blank limit — carried them away to the new things that would come with the coming years, when Eppie would have learned to understand how her father Silas cared for her; and made him look for images of that time in the ties and charities that bound together the families of his neighbours.
”
”
George Eliot (Complete Works of George Eliot)
“
Dear God, I love this tree. I love the light filtering through the moss and the leaves. I love all your earth songs—the breeze rustling through the grass, the rhythm of crickets, the beating of wings. I love the rain water in the bird bath and the dragonflies that flit over it. I love the air so laden with moisture that the dew rains out of the tree and bathes my face. I love the artistic little prayers that the spiders weave through the woods. I love the way you blend daylight into darkness, how dusk softens the sharp edges of the world. I love the way the moon changes shape every night. I love the slope of your hills—horizons inside and out. I feel that I’m part of it, that it’s part of me. Here, surrounded and permeated by your creation, I feel you. I feel life. I know myself connected. O God, is there anything you’ve made that can’t pour life and healing into me? When I think of the simplicity and extravagance of creation, I want to bend down and write the word yes across the earth so that you can see it.
”
”
Sue Monk Kidd (When the Heart Waits: Spiritual Direction for Life's Sacred Questions (Plus))
“
Arin watched the fire flare crimson. Then he went outside and surveyed the grounds, saw through leafless trees that no one was near. He could steal a few minutes.
When he stepped back inside the forge, he leaned against the anvil. With one hand he pulled a book from its hiding place behind the kindling box, and in the other he held a hammer so that, if in danger of being caught, he could more quickly pretend to have been working.
He began to read. It was a book he had seen in Kestrel’s possession, one on the history of the Valorian empire. He had taken it from the library after she had returned it, weeks ago.
What would she say, if she saw him reading a book about his enemy, in his enemy’s tongue? What would she do?
Arin knew this: her gaze would measure him, and he would sense a shift of perception within her. Her opinion of him would change as daylight changed, growing or losing shadow. Subtle. Almost indiscernible. She would see him differently, though he wouldn’t know in what way. He wouldn’t know what it meant. This had happened, again and again, since he had come here.
Sometimes he wished he had never come here.
Well. Kestrel couldn’t see him in the forge, or know what he read, because she couldn’t leave her rooms. She couldn’t even walk.
Arin shut the book, gripped it between rigid fingers. He nearly threw it into the fire.
I will have you torn limb from limb, the general had said.
That wasn’t why Arin stayed away from her. Not really.
He forced his thoughts from his head. He hid the book where it had been. He busied himself with quiet work, heating iron and charcoal in a crucible to produce steel.
It took some time before Arin realized he was humming a dark tune. For once, he didn’t stop himself. The pressure of song was too strong, the need for distraction too great. Then he found that the music caged behind his closed teeth was the melody Kestrel had played for him months ago. He felt the sensation of it, low and alive, on his mouth.
For a moment, he imagined it wasn’t the melody that touched his lips, but Kestrel.
The thought stopped his breath, and the music, too.
”
”
Marie Rutkoski (The Winner's Curse (The Winner's Trilogy, #1))
“
The black hole of the galaxy swallows the boiling energy of human fury. Soon my waning fume will be obscured forevermore, all insignia of my ionized essence tucked into the anonymous pleat of the universe’s billowing skirt. Until the coarse earth’s rank mustiness calls for me, can I take comfort living purposefully in the rhythms of an ordinarily life? Can I unabashedly absorb the scintillating jewels in the daily milieu? Can I savor an array of pleasantries with my tongue, ears, nose, eyes, lips, and fingertips? Can I take solace in the tenderness of the nights by singing out songs of love and heartache? Can I devote the dazzle of daylight and the vastness of the night’s starriness to investigate life, make a concerted effort to reduce imbedded ignorance, and penetrate layers of obdurate obliviousness? Can I conduct a rigorous search for wisdom irrespective of wherever this journey takes me? Can I make use of the burly pack of prior personal experiences to increase self-awareness? Can I aspire to go forward in good spirits and cheerfully accept all challenges as they come? Can I skim along the delicate surface of life with a light heart until greeting an endless sleep with a begrudging grin in the coolness of the ebbing light?
”
”
Kilroy J. Oldster (Dead Toad Scrolls)
“
it’s one of the great sunrises in all literature. Mark Twain: from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn . . . then we set down on the sandy bottom where the water was about knee deep, and watched the daylight come. Not a sound anywheres—perfectly still—just like the whole world was asleep, only sometimes the bull-frogs a-cluttering, maybe. The first thing to see, looking away over the water, was a kind of dull line—that was the woods on t’other side—you couldn’t make nothing else out; then a pale place in the sky; then more paleness, spreading around; then the river softened up, away off, and warn’t black any more, but gray; you could see little dark spots drifting along, ever so far away—trading scows, and such things; and long black streaks—rafts; sometimes you could hear a sweep screaking; or jumbled-up voices, it was so still, and sounds come so far; and by-and-by you could see a streak on the water which you know by the look of the streak that there’s a snag there in a swift current which breaks on it and makes that streak look that way; and you see the mist curl up off of the water, and the east reddens up, and the river, and you make out a log cabin in the edge of the woods, away on the bank on t’other side of the river, being a woodyard, likely, and piled by them cheats so you can throw a dog through it anywheres; then the nice breeze springs up, and comes fanning you from over there, so cool and fresh, and sweet to smell, on account of the woods and the flowers; but sometimes not that way, because they’ve left dead fish laying around, gars, and such, and they do get pretty rank; and next you’ve got the full day, and everything smiling in the sun, and the song-birds just going it!
”
”
Ursula K. Le Guin (Steering The Craft: A Twenty-First-Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Story)
“
Springs and summers full of song and revolution.
The Popular Front, demonstrations and confrontations,
time that takes you away from yourself and your poetry,
so that you could see them as if from cosmic space,
a way of looking that changes everything into stars,
our Earth, you and me, Estonia and Eritrea,
blue anemones and the Pacific Ocean.
Even the belief that you will write more poems. Something
that was breathing into you,
as May wind blows into a house
bringing smells of mown grass and dogs' barks, -
this something has dissipated, become invisible
like stars in daylight. For quite a time I haven't
permitted myself to hope it would come back.
I know I am not free, I am nothing without
this breathing, inspiration, wind that comes
through the window. Let God be free,
whether he exist or no. And then, it comes
once again. At dusk in the countryside
when I go to an outhouse, a little
white moth flies out of the door.
That's it, now. And the dusk around me
begins little by little to breathe in words and syllables.
*
In the morning, I was presented to President Mitterrand,
in the evening, I was weeding nettles from under the currant bushes.
A lot happened inbetween, the ride from Tallinn to Tartu and to our country home
through the spring that we had waited for so long,
and that came, as always, unexpectedly,
changing serious greyish Estonia at once
into a primary school child's drawing in pale green,
into a play-landscape where mayflies, mayors and cars
are all somewhat tiny and ridiculous... In the evening
I saw the full moon rising above the alder grove. Two bats
circled over the courtyard. The President's hand
was soft and warm. As were his eyes,
where fatigue was, in a curious way,
mingled with force, and depth with banality.
He had bottomless night eyes
with something mysterious in them
like the paths of moles underground
or the places where bats hibernate and sleep.
”
”
Jaan Kaplinski
“
…
I’ll feel the magic, in the blissful daylight
I’ll listen to the cheerful songs of nature
And I will heal my soul, with joy and love
...
(Excerpted from My kind of resilience, chapter Resilience)
”
”
Claudia Pavel (The odyssey of my lost thoughts)
“
For Elvis Presley, living in a completely segregated world, the one thing that was not segregated was the radio dial. There was WDIA (“the Mother Station of the Negroes,” run, of course, by white executives), which was the black station, on which a young white boy could listen to, among other people, the Rev. Herbert Brewster, a powerful figure in the world of Memphis black churches. A songwriter of note, he composed “Move On Up a Little Higher,” the first black gospel song to sell over a million copies. What was clear about the black gospel music was that it had a power of its own, missing from the tamer white church music, and that power seemed to come as much as anything else from the beat. In addition there was the immensely popular Dewey Phillips. When Elvis listened to the black radio station at home, his family was not pleased. “Sinful music,” it was called, he once noted. But even as Elvis Presley was coming on the scene, the musical world was changing. Certainly, whites had traditionally exploited the work of black musicians, taking their music, softening and sweetening it and making it theirs. The trade phrase for that was “covering” a black record. It was thievery in broad daylight, but black musicians had no power to protect themselves or their music.
”
”
David Halberstam (The Fifties)
“
There would be repercussions should I not return."
Montgomery's eyes widened, blue and guileless. "You see, this is the difference between you and me. When you make a statement like that, you think it will sway me. It doesn't. I. Don't. Care. I could kill you as easily as stepping on an ant and with far less remorse. Perhaps I'd face your repercussions on the morrow. Perhaps not. But that is for the sunrise. Tonight the shadows reign and the blood is singing in my veins. My very muscles tremble with the urge to carve the meat from your bones. Tell me"- he swept wide his arms- "who in this whole dissolute world is to dissuade me from my pleasures?"
Standing barefoot in his purple silk banyan, books scattered at his feet in the flickering light of a few candles, still holding that jeweled, curving dagger, he might've been some druidic priest, born before history was written.
Before men knew human sacrifice was forbidden.
Bridget found herself with her hand on his arm. How it had happened she could hardly think. Had it been daylight, had she been better rested, been better prepared, had at least one cup of tea inside her, she would've had better control over herself.
As it was, she was left with the act already done and the duke staring at her with his dangerous, mad eyes.
She swallowed, her lips trembling, and lifted her chin. "Don't. Please."
He cocked his head as though hearing a new song. Or a sound he'd never heard before at all. Something alien and strange.
”
”
Elizabeth Hoyt (Duke of Sin (Maiden Lane, #10))
“
A candle's value diminishes when it
Lit in broad daylight
A song loses its allure when it plays
Amid a cacophony of noise
A secret loses its power when it
Revealed to everyone without discretion
A rare gem loses its value when it becomes
Abundant and easily accessible
Nothing that you do is your fault or your mistake,
It’s just that you’re in the WRONG PLACE!!
”
”
Ritu Negi (Ethereal)
“
Chatting to the gossip of flames
waking from the slumber of
our flesh-drunk night together—
it’s only when I step out
to pee do I notice—
how far, burgundy-dark,
the moon has risen….
On four paws the shepherd-
dogs bound, lightly
though the trees they
hardly touch on earth—
we saw it from far
sunk here
in an always-ache….
Dyeing paling twilight woods—
a pair of wasps, spiraling, writhe….
Wetted lips of hers
and mine, just-parted,
move over each other
with tongues just-coming
but refuse—
like mists of evening
they've no place to settle….
Just-here though she's singing
she’s in some song from long ago—
poised on the brink
of twilight longing
three thousand miles
rush through my heart….
Under undulating curtains—
I hover above her
the tips of me brushing
the tips of her—
breathing back and forth
a column of air
we share our breath
slowly asphyxiating….
From burning wood campfire sparks dart off
extinguishing in the wet blue dark…
how you blow your long wind
across my embers,
through my soul, she pleads me,
take away the pain—
I dip a branch in blue water
and plunge it into coals….
***
In pre-dawn dark, against
a leaping inferno of flames
black monolith of wood
in the cast iron compartment
softens, and—gradually— fractures
to cells, warping upward,
until from the top a shard splinters:
pearls of flame string a fiber
and leap in little tongues
while the log, glowing, engulfed,
is consumed by the inferno contained….
A shadow daunts me, haunts and taunts me
now reaching far, now recoiling, now growing bold….
I once sang eruptions and the wind—
then appeared you
it took my whole life
singing only the songs of you
and still I sing for you
what other refuge
can stay me from this torment?
So— my doppelganger has arrived
no one said it would happen this way
but the way his hands
fold like mine, the style
of his humor, broadness of his smile—
even the way he walks….
Licking and lapping these lashings
of grasses are in tongues at my feet
smoldering's the fury within me—
I have seen my fields of daylight warp
to noxious-air infernos
but still to the clean blue of the flame
I take rest in her breast….
His songs I mouth, and in my head
is his voice— I cannot hear my own….
in my mind I see myself— thin,
stupid— my arms too weak,
my own chest too frail— and besides
I prefer him more….
Along spiral lines, seed-heads decay— swept away
they whirl and writhe in the hot blue fire of evening….
Stuck in a mural of sticky flesh— the family…
I am locked-in-arms with brothers
and sisters, drooping at the thighs
with nieces and nephews,
grafted to parents at the scalp, and
pasted with toddlers all over…
hived, sapped, black I sit, subject
to the flavors and aromas of your abuse….
Then— be wrapped in his presence…
crescendo to his warmth
the cascade of your laughter
search in his wrinkles
for the boy inside him…
I’m just biding here, bragless,
trying to admit these
rival-streams that flow
in one latticework of blood….
Halves of flesh and bosomy hips, lips
like dark ripe fruits they're chasing—
I chased them…
full-feathered was their hair
like floss in the sunshine
fine-fingered was their style
like laces cut to curves:
and then there was you,
returning one, just there
like the midnight moon
in my sky at noontime….
”
”
Mark Kaplon
“
Riverstone:
Viscount of tine stony grave
Alive and well attended to;
Deliverance beyond this day:
I bid thee well along and thru.
Despite the case at hand to see
Before my eyes against me say:
To rid me of my misery,
A desperate call to riverine stay.
The cult which led me to that place-
A devil hooked on just romance-;
My sister bled with solemn grace:
A flower sti I I and yet to dance.
Whatever for we shan't oblige
For mystic chanting let alone
The daemons and their just demise
The daylight break to Riverstone.
And well adhered to firm belief
The dudgeon of a higher man
Amidst my song of pear and leaf
To take thee to a brighter land.
A season of the greater arts
A life of wealth, and will to bring
The pristine health of desperate hearts-
The kindness of a Druid king-
And let alone the blessed face
My own two eyes remember this
Alone, beyond the steady race,
To dance about the cold abyss.
A presence well enchanted in
The ways of light yet to demand
My sister in the hands of sin
A daughter of the ocean-brand.
To sea she runs with ample stride
The wave alone to render sti I I
To peer along her way with pride
My darling heart she kindly fills.
And like the darling buds of May
She dances from around and to
Deliverance beyond this day:
I bid thee well along and thru
”
”
Marc-Alexandre Gagnon (Memento Mori)
“
They set sail for the emerald green islands in seas Where the rocks and the trade winds are brothers. There are mountains nearby and they reach to the sky, Shearing clouds and warding off others. Warm mists o’er the blue bring a mermaid or two Up fathoms from the cold briny water. Sailors in the nest may spy the beautiful breasts And the tail of the Ocean God’s daughter. It happened one morning as daylight was dawning On a ship that was already a-stirrin’. A soft salty breeze put the crew to their knees With a song that sent their senses a-blurrin’. In the gray morning light, a young sailor caught sight Of a beautiful mermaid a-swimmin’. He then made a wish to be loved by a fish That was better by far than most women. —Brik
”
”
D.B. Patterson (Epiphany Man - An Inspirational Novel)
“
JAMIE'S SONG 'KILL ME':
In the darkness of the night,
you come to me to fight.
You tell me stories of your life,
and make me miss you all the while.
I used to crave you but now I find,
I’m not living, I’m blind.
And the daylight has combined,
with the hollow that’s inside.
This black space that’s in me,
is all you’ve left me to feel.
The love you took from me,
was all I had, is all I feel.
But now there’s nothing left of me.
You should’ve killed me,
or buried me alive.
You could’ve shot me,
even stabbed me with a knife.
I wish you’d killed me;
I wish you’d kill me instead.
”
”
Neha Yazmin (Chasing Pavements (The Soulmates Saga #1))
“
I looked into her gray-blue eyes and saw myself in them, as clearly as looking in a mirror. Building a miniature record player for my dollhouse long past bedtime. Teaching myself to code a Web site under the covers, so my dad wouldn’t come in and tell me to go to sleep. DJing alone in my bedroom in the dark. These things could always wait until daylight, but I wanted to do them in the night.
”
”
Leila Sales (This Song Will Save Your Life)
“
What a howling wilderness is this world without our Lord! If once He hides Himself from us, withered are the flowers of our garden; our pleasant fruits decay; the birds suspend their songs, and a tempest overturns our hopes. All earth’s candles cannot make daylight if the Sun of Righteousness be eclipsed. He is the soul of our soul, the light of our light, the life of our life. Dear reader, what would you do in the world without Him when you wake up and look ahead to the day’s battle? What would you do at night when you come home jaded and weary if there were no door of fellowship between you and Christ? Blessed be His name, He will not leave us to face the struggle without Him, for Jesus never forsakes His own. Yet, let the thought of what life would be without Him enhance His preciousness.
”
”
Anonymous
“
The way the truth of it hits you
is less white-lighting whisky
more the slow arrival of fall
in a place that knows little
of hard, dug-in winters. Here
we are southerners playing
North, Appalachians denying
everything by the salvation
of the Lord, folks running from
those people everyone tries
to make us be. Daylight bends
through the trees and steady
songs of birds we cannot see.
”
”
D.A. Lockhart (This City at the Crossroads)
“
Sobriety and daylight bring a new perspective that often feels like the battle between imagination and reality. It’s the space between those two forces, and the balancing of them, where a life of possibility exists.
”
”
Gordon MacMillan (Songs for Your Mother)
“
We'd been looking to the daylight to save us, when all it did was hide and diffuse the power. Night waited for our eyes to come home. Charlie understood the stars didn't just twinkle and burn—they sang, just like us. Across the dark distance of space every star vibrated, a song belted through time—the music of life—offering more power than ever produced. All our ancestors looked up at the same night sky. In the dark, under ancient, cosmic sparkle, they found their gifts. In the dark they evolved math and poetry and song, found the language of themselves. In the dark, they discovered infinite power, black power, a heritage of and beyond the world.
”
”
Cebo Campbell (Sky Full of Elephants)
“
I Will Always Love You
Lovely words from a loving Mother
When the sun does not shine
And the noon becomes dull
When the moon goes too soon
And daylight fades on the horizon
Be rest assured, I will always love you
When you see my flaws
Or feel like not loving me anymore
When you begin to wonder
If I am the Mother you expected me to be
You must know that I will always love you
When I cannot sing you a song
In case you hear the cracks in my voice
When the journey seems long
Perhaps I am no more and you feel all alone
Remember that I will always love you
You are a star that makes my night so bright
The one who lifts me high
A great blessing in my life
I am very proud to call you my child
That is why I will always love you
With the whole of my being
And all that is within
From the hair on my head
To the heels of my feet
I will always love you
”
”
Gift Gugu Mona (From My Mother's Classroom: A Badge of Honour for a Remarkable Woman)
“
It was the song of goats bleating, ponies stomping in the snow, and women and men laughing together. Tenzin opened her eyes and held her breath, willing away the pain that speared through her shoulder. Don’t curse me with memories; I’ve given them to another. But the moon and the wind had gone silent again. She turned back to the blinking, manmade lights of the ship and descended. It was getting late, and she was starting to see sunlight growing on the horizon. When she landed on the deck, she pulled her tunic over her body and retreated to the dark hold she’d claimed. She didn’t look for the moon again. Those searching for buried treasure in the daylight would have to find their own luck.
”
”
Elizabeth Hunter (Night's Reckoning (Elemental Legacy, #3))
“
The mild heat of the morning sun is a healing gift from heaven.
”
”
Michael Bassey Johnson (Song of a Nature Lover)
“
The sun works the day shift; the moon, the night shift.
”
”
Michael Bassey Johnson (Song of a Nature Lover)
“
In the day’s last light the glowing lake below the palace-city looked like a sea of molten gold. A traveller coming this way at sunset — this traveller, coming this way, now, along the lakeshore road — might believe himself to be approaching the throne of a monarch so fabulously wealthy that he could allow a portion of his treasure to be poured into a giant hollow in the earth to dazzle and awe his guests. And as big as the lake of gold was, it must be only a drop drawn from the sea of the larger fortune — the traveller’s imagination could not begin to grasp the size of that mother-ocean! Nor were there guards at the golden water’s edge; was the king so generous, then, that he allowed all his subjects, and perhaps even strangers and visitors like the traveller himself, without hindrance to draw up liquid bounty from the lake? That would indeed be a prince among men, a veritable Prester John, whose lost kingdom of song and fable contained impossible wonders. Perhaps (the traveller surmised) the fountain of eternal youth lay within the city walls — perhaps even the legendary doorway to Paradise on Earth was somewhere close at hand? But then the sun fell below the horizon, the gold sank beneath the water’s surface, and was lost. Mermaids and serpents would guard it until the return of daylight. Until then, water itself would be the only treasure on offer, a gift the thirsty traveller gratefully accepted.
”
”
Salman Rushdie (The Enchantress of Florence)
“
I Will Always Love You
Lovely words from a loving Mother
When the sun does not shine
And the noon becomes dull
When the moon goes too soon
As daylight fades from the horizon
Be rest assured, I will always love you
When you see my flaws
Or feel like not loving me anymore
When you begin to wonder
If I am the Mother you expected me to be
You must know that, I will always love you
When I cannot sing you a song
In case you hear the cracks in my voice
When the journey travelled seems long
Perhaps I am no more, and you feel all alone
Remember that, I will always love you
You are a star that makes my night so bright
The one who lifts me up high
A great blessing in my life
I am very proud to call you my child
That is why, I will always love you
With the whole of my being
And all that is within me
From the hair on my head
To the heels of my feet
I will always love you
”
”
Gift Gugu Mona (From My Mother's Classroom: A Badge of Honour for a Remarkable Woman)
“
TIPS TO BECOME A GREAT OBSERVER:
----------
1). Watch the sunrise and sundown at least a week and make a note what you truly noticed.
--
2). Feel the daylight and dark night at least a week and notice how you are truly feeling.
--
3). Walk around the nearest market at least a month and notice whatever you are hearing.
--
4). Use google search and watch YouTube videos of your interest and keep moving.
--
5). Join social media twitter and Facebook and keep observing the people you are meeting.
--
6). Listen online radio a random song at lest 2 hours at night and keep capturing the lyrics.
--
7). And the main meditate, think, imagine at night while sleeping and keep going.
--
8). Many Congratulations you are on your way to become a great observer.
”
”
Santosh Kumar
“
I have been brought into darkness
surely against me he has turned
he hath set me in dark places
he hath hedged me about
that I cannot get out
he hath made my chain heavy
he hath closed my ways with stone
he was like a bear lying in wait
he hath pulled me to pieces
and made me desolate
that I cannot get out
he hath filled my teeth with dust
and covered me with ashes
I cried out to my rescuers
and they did not hear me,
I turned away, and still
I was hedged about,
the daylight was taken
and the blanket was taken
and the rope and all
my childish things,
I cried out with my throat
and my in-my-heart
and my Lord's Prayer and
my now I lay me down
to sleep, and my health
and my hands, and my
show me myself and my
secrets-and-all-my-sins
forgiven and I counted
the ones I knew and the ones
I dreamed and I measured
the shadow cast by the mirror,
but the sun was remote and
cold to me. I turned away,
and still I was hedged about
and anointed in fire
and ashes. I saw
the blue sheen
of the world through
the darkness, and the crust,
and the stain of another,
I touched my hair to my mouth,
and my arms to my legs,
and my mouth to my knee.
I smelled the animal sweetness
and the dampness of leaves
beyond the wall; I heard
the murmurs of my mothers
and my brother, alone in his
whimpering, and I heard the strangers
whisper. But when I cried they did not
hear me, and when I sang
they did not know my song,
and when I spoke, they did
not acknowledge me, and when I left
they did not seek me out
along the cisterns and
streets of the city.
Mercy is new in the morning
they said, and our god
will not stand for such
suffering—oh god of mercy
and golden light.
”
”
Anonymous
“
The Laughing Thrush
O nameless joy of the morning
tumbling upward note by note out of the night
and the hush of the dark valley
and out of what has not been there
song unquestioning and unbounded
yes this is the place and the one time
in the whole of before and after
with all of memory waking into it
and the lost visages that hover
around the edge of sleep
constant and clear
and the words that lately have fallen silent
to surface among the phrases of some future
if there is a future
here is where they all sing the first daylight
whether or not there is anyone listening
”
”
W.S. Merwin (The Shadow of Sirius)
“
Are there not twelve hours of daylight in every day?b You can go through a day without the fear of stumbling when you walk in the One who gives light to the world.
”
”
Brian Simmons (The Passion Translation New Testament: With Psalms, Proverbs and Song of Songs (The Passion Translation))
“
of those campfire songs that would’ve been completely embarrassing in daylight; but in the dark, with everybody participating, it was kind of corny and fun.
”
”
Anonymous