# City Of Dreadful Night

- Author: [James Thomson](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-thomson.md)
- Quotes: 10
- Book page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-thomson/city-of-dreadful-night

## Quotes

> For life is but a dream whose shapes return,
>
> Some frequently, some seldom, some by night
>
> And some by day.

> The City is of Night; perchance of Death,
>
> But certainly of Night; for never there
>
> Can come the lucid morning's fragrant breath
>
> After the dewy dawning's cold grey air.

> The world rolls round for ever like a mill;
>
> It grinds out death and life and good and ill;
>
> It has no purpose, heart or mind or will.

> And all sad scenes and thoughts and feelings vanish
>
> In that sweet sleep no power can ever banish,
>
> That one best sleep which never wakes again.

> Yet why evoke the spectres of black night
>
> To blot the sunshine of exultant years?

> Yet I strode on austere;
>
> No hope could have no fear.

> The street-lamps burn amidst the baleful glooms,
>
> Amidst the soundless solitudes immense
>
> Of ranged mansions dark and still as tombs.

> The mighty river flowing dark and deep,
>
> With ebb and flood from the remote sea-tides,
>
> Vague-sounding through the City’s sleepless sleep,
>
> Is named the River of the Suicides.

> As I came through the desert thus it was,
>
> As I came through the desert: All was black,
>
> In heaven no single star, on earth no track;
>
> A brooding hush without a stir or note;
>
> The air so thick it clotted in my throat.

> The City is of Night, but not of Sleep;
>
> There sweet sleep is not for the weary brain;
>
> The pitiless hours like years and ages creep,
>
> A night seems termless hell.