Night-time sharpens, heightens each sensation...
Darkness stirs and wakes imagination...
Silently the senses abandon their defenses.

Slowly, gently night unfurls its splendour...
Grasp it, sense it - tremulous and tender...
Turn your face away from the garish light of day -
Turn your thoughts away from cold, unfeeling light -
And listen to the music of the night.
The Music of the Night
Softly, deftly, music shall surround you...
Feel it, hear it, closing in around you...
Close your eyes, let your spirit start to soar -
And you'll live as you have never lived before.

Let your mind start a journey through a strange new world...
Leave all thoughts of the world you knew before...
You alone can make my song take flight -
Help me make the music of the night.

-- From "The Phantom of the Opera" - lyrics by Charles Hart
I have been acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain - and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.
I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.
Proclaimed the time was neither wrong, nor right.
I have been acquainted with the night.

-- Robert Frost
I stood on the bridge at midnight, as the clocks were striking the hour,
And the moon rose o'er the city, behind the dark church-tower.
I saw her bright reflection in the waters under me,
Like a golden goblet falling and sinking to the sea.

Among the long, black rafters, the wavering shadows lay,
And the current that came from the ocean seemed to lift and bear them away;
And like those waters rushing among the wooden piers,
A flood of thoughts came o'er me that filled my eyes with tears.
How often, oh, how often, in the days that had gone by,
I'd stood on that bridge at midnight and gazed on that wave and sky.
But now care has fallen from me, it is buried in the sea;
And only the sorrow of others throws its shadow over me.

Yet, whenever I cross the river on the bridge that held my tears,
Like the scent of brine from the ocean, comes the thought of other years.
And I think how many thousands of care-encumbered men,
Each bearing his burden of sorrow, have crossed the bridge since then.
And forever and forever, as long as the river flows,
As long as the heart has passions, as long as life has woes;
The moon and its broken reflection and its shadows shall appear,
As the symbol of love in heaven, and its wavering image here.

-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The photos below were taken at the Washington National Cathedral.  You'll find a link to this
impressive Cathedral album, featured on Webshots, in the Links at the bottom of the page.
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.
I see the lights of the village gleam through the rain and the mist,
And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me that my soul cannot resist.

A feeling of sadness and longing that is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only as the mist resembles the rain.
Come, read to me some poem, some simple and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling, and banish the thoughts of day.

Read from some humble poet, whose songs gushed from his heart,
As showers from the summer clouds, or tears from the eyelids start.
Who, through long days of labor, and nights devoid of ease,
Still heard in his soul the music of wonderful melodies.

Such songs have power to quiet the restless pulse of care,
And come like the benediction that follows after prayer.
And the night shall be filled with music and the cares that infest the day
Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs, and as silently steal away.

-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow