The knell, the shroud, the mattock, and the grave,

The deep damp vault, the darkness and the worm.

Edward Young (1684-1765): Night Thoughts. Night iv. Line 10.

Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night,

Brother to Death, in silent darkness born.

Samuel Daniel (1562-1619): To Delia. Sonnet 51.

Melt and dispel, ye spectre-doubts, that roll

Cimmerian darkness o'er the parting soul!

Thomas Campbell (1777-1844): Pleasures of Hope. Part ii. Line 263.

Brightest and best of the sons of the morning,

Dawn on our darkness, and lend us thine aid.

Reginald Heber (1783-1826): Epiphany.

Thou art gone to the grave; but we will not deplore thee,

Though sorrows and darkness encompass the tomb.

Reginald Heber (1783-1826): At a Funeral. No. ii.

The day is done, and the darkness

Falls from the wings of Night,

As a feather is wafted downward

From an eagle in his flight.

Henry W Longfellow (1807-1882): The Day is done.

For I say this is death and the sole death,—

When a man's loss comes to him from his gain,

Darkness from light, from knowledge ignorance,

And lack of love from love made manifest.

Robert Browning (1812-1890): A Death in the Desert.

And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,

The instruments of darkness tell us truths,

Win us with honest trifles, to betray's

In deepest consequence.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 3.

Swift as a shadow, short as any dream;

Brief as the lightning in the collied night,

That in a spleen unfolds both heaven and earth,

And ere a man hath power to say, "Behold!"

The jaws of darkness do devour it up:

So quick bright things come to confusion.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act i. Sc. 1.

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 (1716-1771): Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 1.

Let us weep in our darkness, but weep not for him!

Not for him who, departing, leaves millions in tears!

Not for him who has died full of honor and years!

Not for him who ascended Fame's ladder so high

From the round at the top he has stepped to the sky.

Nathaniel P Willis (1817-1867): The Death of Harrison.

The sky is changed,—and such a change! O night

And storm and darkness! ye are wondrous strong,

Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light

Of a dark eye in woman! Far along,

From peak to peak, the rattling crags among,

Leaps the live thunder.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iii. Stanza 92.

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:

The soul that rises with us, our life's star,

Hath had elsewhere its setting,

And cometh from afar.

Not in entire forgetfulness,

And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory, do we come

From God, who is our home:

Heaven lies about us in our infancy.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): Ode. Intimations of Immortality. Stanza 5.

Ring in the valiant man and free,

The larger heart, the kindlier hand!

Ring out the darkness of the land,

Ring in the Christ that is to be!

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): In Memoriam. cv. Stanza 8.

The Lord descended from above

And bow'd the heavens high;

And underneath his feet he cast

The darkness of the sky.

On cherubs and on cherubims

Full royally he rode;

And on the wings of all the winds

Came flying all abroad.

Thomas Sternhold (Circa 1549): A Metrical Version of Psalm civ.

The prince of darkness is a gentleman.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Lear. Act iii. Sc. 4.

The prince of darkness is a gentleman.

Sir John Suckling (1609-1641): The Goblins.

How sweetly did they float upon the wings

Of silence through the empty-vaulted night,

At every fall smoothing the raven down

Of darkness till it smil'd!

John Milton (1608-1674): Comus. Line 249.

Thou art gone to the grave; but we will not deplore thee,

Though sorrows and darkness encompass the tomb.

Reginald Heber (1783-1826): At a Funeral. No. ii.

Slave to no sect, who takes no private road,

But looks through Nature up to Nature's God.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Essay on Man. Epistle iv. Line 331.

And not from Nature up to Nature's God,

But down from Nature's God look Nature through.

Robert Montgomery (1807-1855): Luther. A Landscape of Domestic Life.

Religion blushing, veils her sacred fires,

And unawares Morality expires.

Nor public flame nor private dares to shine;

Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine!

Lo! thy dread empire Chaos is restor'd,

Light dies before thy uncreating word;

Thy hand, great Anarch, lets the curtain fall,

And universal darkness buries all.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The Dunciad. Book iv. Line 649.

The great world's altar-stairs,

That slope through darkness up to God.

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): In Memoriam. lv. Stanza 4.

Yet from those flames

No light, but rather darkness visible.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 62.