Evening is the period between the late afternoon and night when daylight is decreasing, around dinner time. Though the term is subjective, evening is typically understood to begin before sunset, during the close of the standard business day and extend until nightfall, the beginning of night. Evening thus spans the period of twilight, but begins before it and depending on definition may extend past its end.
- Day, like a weary pilgrim, had reached the western gate of heaven, and Evening stooped down to unloose the latchets of his sandal shoon.
- Now came still evening on; and twilight gray
Had in her sober livery all things clad:
Silence accompanied; for beast and bird,
They to their grassy couch, these to their nests,
Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale.
- Just then return'd at shut of evening flowers.
Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations
- Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 238-39.
- At the close of the day, when the hamlet is still
And mortals the sweets of forgetfulness prove,
When nought but the torrent is heard on the hill
And nought but the nightingale's song in the grove.
- James Beattie, Hermit.
- And whiter grows the foam,
The small moon lightens more;
And as I turn me home,
My shadow walks before.
- Robert Bridges, The Clouds have left the Sky.
- To me at least was never evening yet
But seemed far beautifuller than its day.
- Robert Browning, The Ring and the Book, Pompilia, line 357.
- Hath thy heart within thee burned,
At evening's calm and holy hour?
- S. G. Bulfinch, Meditation.
- It is the hour when from the boughs
The nightingale's high note is heard;
It is the hour when lovers' vows
Seem sweet in every whispered word;
And gentle winds, and waters near,
Make music to the lonely ear.
Each flower the dews have lightly wet,
And in the sky the stars are met,
And on the wave is deeper blue,
And on the leaf a browner hue,
And in the heaven that clear obscure,
So softly dark, and darkly pure.
Which follows the decline of day,
As twilight melts beneath the moon away.
- Lord Byron, Parisina, Stanza 1.
- When day is done, and clouds are low,
And flowers are honey-dew,
And Hesper's lamp begins to glow
Along the western blue;
And homeward wing the turtle-doves,
Then comes the hour the poet loves.
- George Croly, The Poet's Hour.
- The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
- Thomas Gray, Elegy in a Country Churchyard ("Herd wind" in 1753 ed. "Knell of parting day" taken from Dante).
- Day hath put on his jacket, and around
His burning bosom buttoned it with stars.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., Evening.
- How gently rock yon poplars high
Against the reach of primrose sky
With heaven's pale candles stored.
- Jean Ingelow, Supper at the Mill, Song.
- But when eve's silent footfall steals
Along the eastern sky,
And one by one to earth reveals
Those purer fires on high.
- John Keble, The Christian Year, Fourth Sunday After Trinity.
- Fly not yet, 'tis just the hour
When pleasure, like the midnight flower
That scorns the eye of vulgar light,
Begins to bloom for sons of night,
And maids who love the moon.
- Thomas Moore, Fly Not Yet.
- O how grandly cometh Even,
Sitting on the mountain summit,
Purple-vestured, grave, and silent,
Watching o'er the dewy valleys,
Like a good king near his end.
- Dinah Craik, A Stream's Singing.
- One by one the flowers close,
Lily and dewy rose
Shutting their tender petals from the moon.
- Christina G. Rossetti, Twilight Calm.
- Day's lustrous eyes grow heavy in sweet death.
- Friedrich Schiller, The Assignation, Stanza 4. Lord Lytton's translation.
- The pale child, Eve, leading her mother, Night.
- Alexander Smith, A Life Drama, scene 8.
- The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices.
- Alfred Tennyson, Ulysses, line 54.
- I was heavy with the even,
When she lit her glimmering tapers
Round the day's dead sanctities.
I laughed in the morning's eyes.
- Francis Thompson, The Hound of Heaven, line 84.
- The holy time is quiet as a Nun
Breathless with adoration.
- William Wordsworth, It is a Beauteous Evening.