• Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica , III 302:⁠— “It was the hour when every traveller And every watchman at the gate of towns Begins to long for sleep, and drowsiness Is falling even on the mother’s eyes Whose child is dead.” Also Byron, Don Juan , III 108:⁠— “Soft hour! which wakes the wish and melts the heart Of those who sail the seas, on the first day When they from their sweet friends are torn apart; Or fills with love the pilgrim on his way, As the far bell of vesper makes him start, Seeming to weep the dying day’s decay. Is this a fancy which our reason scorns? Ah! surely nothing dies but something mourns!” ↩
• The word “pilgrim” is here used by Dante in a general sense, meaning any traveller. ↩
• Gray, “Elegy”:⁠— “The curfew tolls the knell of parting day.” ↩