When true friends meet in adverse hour,
'Tis like a sunbeam through a shower;
A watery ray an instant seen,
The darkly closing clouds between. [ Scott ]

Live for today! tomorrow's light,
Tomorrow's cares shall bring to sight;
Go sleep, like closing flowers, at night,
And Heaven thy morn will bless. [ Keble ]

Now sunk the sun; the closing hour of day,
Came onward, mantled over with sober grey;
Nature in silence bid the world repose. [ Parnell ]

Gradual sinks the breeze,
Into a perfect calm; that not a breath
I heard to quiver thro' the closing woods,
Or rustling turn the many twinkling leaves,
Of aspen tall. The uncurling floods diffused?
In glassy breadth, seen through delusive lapse
Forgetful of their course. 'Tis silence all.
And pleasing expectation. [ Thomson ]

The immortal mind, superior to his fate.
Amid the outrage of external things,
Firm as the solid base of this great world.
Rests on his own foundation. Blow, ye winds!
Ye waves! ye thunders! roll your tempests on!
Shake, ye old pillars of the marble sky!
Till at its orbs and all its worlds of fire
Be loosen'd from their seats; yet still serene,
The unconquer'd mind looks down upon the wreck;
And ever stronger as the storms advance,
Firm through the closing ruin holds his way,
When nature calls him to the destined goal. [ Akenside ]

The life of a miser is a play of which we applaud only the closing scene. [ Sanial-Dubay ]

The eyes of our souls only then begin to see when our bodily eyes are closing. [ William Law ]

We declare to you that the earth has exhausted its contingent of master spirits. Now for decadence and general closing. We must make up our minds to it. We shall have no more men of genius. [ Victor Hugo ]

Mother! How many delightful associations cluster around that word! The innocent smiles of infancy, the gambols of boyhood, and the happiest hours of riper years! When my heart aches and my limbs are weary travelling the thorny path of life, I sit down on some mossy stone, and closing my eyes on real scenes, send my spirit back to the days of early life; I feel afresh my infant joys and sorrows, till my spirit recovers its tone, and is willing to pursue its journey. But in all these reminiscences my mother rises; if I seat myself upon my cushion, it is at her side; if I sing, it is to her ear; if I walk the walls or the meadows, my little hand is in my mother's, and my little feet keep company with hers; when my heart bounds with its best joy, it is because at the performance of some task, or the recitation of some verses, I receive a present from her hand. There is no velvet so soft as a mother's lap, no rose so lovely as her smile, no path so flowery as that imprinted with her footsteps. [ Bishop Thomson ]