Music and Night

“When I am with you, we stay up all night.

When you're not here, I can't go to sleep.

Praise God for those two insomnias!

And the difference between them.”

―Rumi

“Most glorious night!

Thou wert not sent for slumber!”

―Lord Byron, ‘Childe Harold's Pilgrimage’

‘The stars are forth, the moon above the tops

Of the snow-shining mountains—Beautiful!

I linger yet with Nature, for the night

Hath been to me a more familiar face

Than that of man; and in her starry shade

Of dim and solitary loveliness

I learn'd the language of another world.”

―Lord Byron, ‘Manfred’

“How beautiful this night! the balmiest sigh

Which Vernal Zephyrs breathe in evening's ear

Were discord to the speaking quietude

That wraps this moveless scene. Heaven's ebon vault,

Studded with stars, unutterably bright,

Through which the moon's unclouded grandeur rolls,

Seems like a canopy which love has spread

To curtain her sleeping world.”

―Percy Bysshe Shelley, ‘Queen Mab’

“The company should ask thee for a song.

Sing, then I …

With masculine vibration sang this song…

Dark the Night, with breath all flowers,

And tender broken voice that fills

With ravishment the listening hours,—

Whisperings, wooings,

Liquid ripples, and soft ring-dove cooings

In low-toned rhythm that love's aching stills!

Dark the night

Yet is she bright,

For in her dark she brings the mystic star,

Trembling yet strong, as is the voice of love,

From some unknown afar.

O radiant Dark! O darkly fostered ray!

Thou hast a joy too deep for shallow Day.”

―George Eliot, ‘Spanish Gypsy’

“It was one of those nights

One of those nights

When you feel the world stop turning

You were standing there

There was music in the air

I should have been away

But I knew I had to stay.”

―Jeff Lynne, ‘Last Train to London, Discovery’

“The music enchanted the air. It was like the south wind, like a warm night, like swelling sails beneath the stars, completely and utterly unreal... It made everything spacious and colourful, the dark stream of life seemed pulsing in it; there were no burdens any more, no limits; there existed only glory and melody and love, so that one simply could not realize that, at the same time as this music was, outside there ruled poverty and torment and despair.” ―Erich Maria Remarque, Three Comrades