Midnight

Midnight is the transition time period from one day to the next: the moment when the date changes. In the Roman time system, midnight was halfway between sunset and sunrise, varying according to the seasons.

Famous quotes containing the word midnight:

“And yet what good were yesterday’s devotions?
I affirm and then at midnight the great cat
Leaps quickly from the fireside and is gone.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)

“at mothy curfew-tide,
And at midnight when the noon-heat breathes it back from walls and leads,
They’ve a way of whispering to me—fellow-wight who yet
abide—”
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)

“What bird so sings, yet so does wail?
O, ‘tis the ravished nightingale!
“Jug, jug, jug, jug, tereu,” she cries,
And still her woes at midnight rise.
Brave prick-song! who is’t now we hear?
None but the lark so shrill and clear;”
—John Lyly (1553–1606)