C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.

Sunrise (See Dawn)

And lo! in a flash of crimson splendor, with blazing scarlet clouds running before his chariot, and heralding his majestic approach, God’s sun rises upon the world.

Thackeray.

The heavenly-harness’d team
Begins his golden progress in the east.

Shakespeare.

He fires the proud tops of the eastern pines
And darts his light through every guilty hole.

Shakespeare.

But yonder comes the powerful King of Day,
Rejoicing in the East.

Thomson.

Yonder fly his scattered golden arrows,
And smite the hills with day.

Bayard Taylor.

See how there
The cowlèd night
Kneels on the Eastern sanctuary-stair.

Francis Thompson.

It is right precious to behold
The first long surf of climbing light
Flood all the thirsty east with gold.

James Russell Lowell.

As when the golden sun salutes the morn,
And, having gilt the ocean with his beams,
Gallops the zodiac in his glistering coach,
And overlooks the highest-peering hills.

Shakespeare.

Angel of light! who from the time
Those heavens began their march sublime,
Hath first of all the starry choir
Trod in his Maker’s steps of fire!

Moore.

The sun had long since in the lap
Of Thetis taken out his nap,
And, like a lobster boil’d, the morn
From black to red began to turn.

Butler.

The morning light, which rains its quivering beams
Wide o’er the plains, the summits, and the streams,
In one broad blaze expands its golden glow
On all that answers to its glance below.

Oliver Wendell Holmes.

The whole east was flecked
With flashing streaks and shafts of amethyst,
While a light crimson mist
Went up before the mounting luminary,
And all the strips of cloud began to vary
Their hues, and all the zenith seemed to ope
As if to show a cope beyond the cope!

Epes Sargent.

I say the sun is a most glorious sight,
I’ve seen him rise full oft, indeed of late
I have sat up on purpose all the night,
Which hastens, as physicians say, one’s fate;
And so all ye, who would be in the right
In health and purse, begin your day to date
From daybreak, and when coffin’d at fourscore,
Engrave upon the plate, you rose at four.

Byron.

See! led by Morn, with dewy feet,
Apollo mounts his golden seat,
Replete with seven-fold fire;
While, dazzled by his conquering light,
Heaven’s glittering host and awful night
Submissively retire.

Thomas Taylor.

When from the opening chambers of the east
The morning springs in thousand liveries drest,
The early larks their morning tribute pay,
And, in shrill notes, salute the blooming day.

Thomson.

The rising sun complies with our weak sight,
First gilds the clouds, then shows his globe of light
At such a distance from our eyes, as though
He knew what harm his hasty beams would do.

Edmund Waller.

’Tis morn. Behold the kingly Day now leaps
The eastern wall of earth with sword in hand,
Clad in a flowing robe of mellow light,
Like to a king that has regain’d his throne,
He warms his drooping subjects into joy,
That rise rejoiced to do him fealty,
And rules with pomp the universal world.

Joaquin Miller.

Prime cheerer, light!
Of all material beings first and best!
Efflux divine! Nature’s resplendent robe!
Without whose vesting beauty all were wrapt
In unessential gloom; and thou, O sun!
Soul of surrounding worlds! in whom best seen
Shines out thy Maker!

Thomson.

But yonder comes the powerful king of day,
Rejoicing in the east. The lessening cloud,
The kindling azure, and the mountain’s brow,
Illum’d with fluid gold, his near approach
Betoken glad. Lo! now, apparent all,
Aslant the dew-bright earth, and colour’d air,
He looks in boundless majesty abroad;
And sheds the shining day, that burnish’d plays
On rocks, and hills, and towers, and wand’ring streams,
High gleaming from afar.

Thomson.

The east is blossoming! Yea, a rose,
Vast as the heavens, soft as a kiss,
Sweet as the presence of woman is,
Rises and reaches, and widens and grows
Large and luminous up from the sea,
And out of the sea, as a blossoming tree,
Richer and richer, so higher and higher,
Deeper and deeper it takes its hue;
Brighter and brighter it reaches through
The space of heaven and the place of stars,
Till all is as rich as a rose can be,
And my rose-leaves fall into billows of fire.

Joaquin Miller.

Only the country-liver can fully feel it—this dying of night with the birth of day—this supreme moment when the mists and dimness and low voices of the one exhale into the melody and brightness of the other. It is a daily miracle—this sudden transition from gray to rosy light—this unrolling of the dew-covered landscape—this assumption, in delicious crescendo, of sound—this quickening of the day’s life over the sleep of night—this flying of darkness, as of a ghost pursued, before the flooding of light—this oldest of all stories again told. Awake, for the day has dawned.

E. H. Arr.

When the breaking day is flushing
All the East, and light is gushing
Upward through the horizon’s haze,
Sheaf-like, with its thousand rays
Spreading, until all above
Overflows with joy and love,
And below, on earth’s green bosom,
All is chang’d to light and blossom;
Then, O Father!—Thou alone,
From the shadow of Thy throne,
To the sighing of my breast,
And its rapture answerest:
All my thoughts, with upward winging,
Bathe where Thy own light is springing!

Whittier.

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