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My granddaughter who is about to turn thirteen has been painting at school this year and does wonderful things. One canvas reminded my hubby of Van Gogh’s Starry Night and one was a swing by a pond at night. It runs in my family as two of my aunts and my sister used to paint. It made me think about poems, songs, and stories that mention night in awesome ways.
Vincent
Don McLean
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From Underground Ranger by Doug Thompson
Pg. 149
…we discovered a bitterly cold night and a brilliant half-moon that flooded the canyon with its light…
The view back into the canyon by moonlight was one of the loveliest I had ever seen, with pale blue limestone cliffs and slopes rising starkly above dark cottonwood trees in the canyon bottoms. It was my first night exit from a cave, and it couldn’t have been more beautiful.
From Venice: Tales of the City by Michelle Lovric
Fragment by Paolo Barbaro
Pg. 31
But the moment of enchantment has arrived, down in the courtyard brimming with water. Sewer water no longer, it is (or seems) a limpid gift from the sea. Beneath the full moon laughing at us-after all, she’s responsible for all this-I can clearly see from my window the paving stones of the courtyard and the blossoms of the geraniums through the crystalline water. As the minutes tick by, it splashes up stair after stair, lapping at the second floor of the house.
The full moon, a little oblique now, lights up our small, submerged world like a lamp, shedding a milky radiance on the courtyard and stairs. Then Kramer descends into the courtyard, takes off his shoes, and begins to dance. This Swiss, this citizen of Zurich, has gone suddenly crazy and is dancing in the water with the moon.
To Where you Are
Josh Groban
Fly me up to where you are
Beyond the distant star
I wish upon tonight
To see you smile
If only for awhile to know you're there
A breath away's not far
To where you are
………….
https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/poems-about-night
Night from a railroad car window
Is a great, dark, soft thing
Broken across with slashes of light.
"Window" by Carl Sandburg
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Above us, stars. Beneath us, constellations.
Five billion miles away, a galaxy dies
like a snowflake falling on water...
From "Flying at Night" by Ted Kooser
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voxpopulisphere.com/…
Vachel Lindsay: Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight
(In Springfield, Illinois)
It is portentous, and a thing of state
That here at midnight, in our little town
A mourning figure walks, and will not rest,
Near the old court-house pacing up and down.
Or by his homestead, or in shadowed yards
He lingers where his children used to play,
Or through the market, on the well-worn stones
He stalks until the dawn-stars burn away.
A bronzed, lank man! His suit of ancient black,
A famous high top-hat and plain worn shawl
Make him the quaint great figure that men love,
The prairie-lawyer, master of us all.
He cannot sleep upon his hillside now.
He is among us:—as in times before!
And we who toss and lie awake for long
Breathe deep, and start, to see him pass the door.
His head is bowed. He thinks on men and kings.
Yea, when the sick world cries, how can he sleep?
Too many peasants fight, they know not why,
Too many homesteads in black terror weep.
The sins of all the war-lords burn his heart.
He sees the dreadnaughts scouring every main.
He carries on his shawl-wrapped shoulders now
The bitterness, the folly and the pain.
He cannot rest until a spirit-dawn
Shall come;—the shining hope of Europe free;
The league of sober folk, the Workers’ Earth,
Bringing long peace to Cornland, Alp and Sea.
It breaks his heart that kings must murder still,
That all his hours of travail here for men
Seem yet in vain. And who will bring white peace
That he may sleep upon his hill again?
…………..
https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/summer-night-riverside
Summer Night, Riverside
Sara Teasdale, 1884 - 1933
In the wild soft summer darkness
How many and many a night we two together
Sat in the park and watched the Hudson
Wearing her lights like golden spangles
Glinting on black satin.
The rail along the curving pathway
Was low in a happy place to let us cross,
And down the hill a tree that dripped with bloom
Sheltered us,
While your kisses and the flowers,
Falling, falling,
Tangled in my hair....
The frail white stars moved slowly over the sky.
And now, far off
In the fragrant darkness
The tree is tremulous again with bloom
For June comes back.
To-night what girl
Dreamily before her mirror shakes from her hair
This year’s blossoms, clinging to its coils?
https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/sun-has-long-been-set
The Sun Has Long Been Set
William Wordsworth, 1770 - 1850
The sun has long been set,
The stars are out by twos and threes,
The little birds are piping yet
Among the bushes and trees;
There’s a cuckoo, and one or two thrushes,
And a far-off wind that rushes,
And a sound of water that gushes,
And the cuckoo’s sovereign cry
Fills all the hollow of the sky.
Who would “go parading”
In London, “and masquerading,"
On such a night of June
With that beautiful soft half-moon,
And all these innocent blisses?
On such a night as this is!
