midnight
Or fanciest thou , the red and yellow Clothes-screen yonder , with spurs on its heels and feather in its crown , is but of To-day , without a Yesterday or a To-morrow ; and had not rather its Ancestor alive when Hengst and Horsa overran thy Island ? Friend , thou seest here a living link in that Tissue of History , which inweaves all Being : watch well , or it will be past thee , and seen no more . '' '' _ Ach , mein Lieber _ ! '' said he once , at midnight , when we had returned from the Coffee-house in rather earnest talk , `` it is a true sublimity to dwell here . These fringes of lamplight , struggling up through smoke and thousand-fold exhalation , some fathoms into the ancient reign of Night , what thinks Bootes of them , as he leads his Hunting-Dogs over the Zenith in their leash of sidereal fire ? That stifled hum of Midnight , when Traffic has lain down to rest ; and the chariot-wheels of Vanity , still rolling here and there through distant streets , are bearing her to Halls roofed in , and lighted to the due pitch for her ; and only Vice and Misery , to prowl or to moan like nightbirds , are abroad : that hum , I say , like the stertorous , unquiet slumber of sick Life , is heard in Heaven ! Oh , under that hideous coverlet of vapors , and putrefactions , and unimaginable gases , what a Fermenting-vat lies simmering and hid !