To sit and taste, till this meridian heat
Be over, and the Sun more cool decline.—v. 369-70.
And the great Light of Day yet wants to run
Much of his race, though steep. Suspense in Heaven,
Held by thy voice, thy potent voice he hears,
And longer will delay, to hear thee tell
His generation, and the rising birth
Of Nature from the unapparent deep.—vii. 98-103.
The declining day and approach of evening are described as follows:—
Meanwhile in utmost longitude, where Heaven
With Earth and Ocean meets, the setting Sun
Slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise
Levelled his evening rays.—iv. 539-43.
the Sun now fallen
Beneath the Azores; whether the Prime Orb,
Incredible how swift, had thither rolled
Diurnal, or this less volubil Earth,
By shorter flight to the east, had left him there
Arraying with reflected purple and gold
The clouds that on his western throne attend.—iv. 591-97.
the parting Sun
Beyond the Earth’s green Cape and verdant Isles
Hesperian sets, my signal to depart.—viii. 630-32.
Now was the Sun in western cadence low
From noon, and gentle airs due at their hour
To fan the Earth now waked, and usher in
The evening cool.—x. 92-95.
for the Sun,
Declined, was hasting now with prone career
To the Ocean Isles, and in the ascending scale
Of Heaven the stars that usher evening rose.—iv. 352-55.
In the combat between Michael and Satan, which ended in the overthrow of the rebel angels, Milton, in his description of their armour, says:—
two broad suns their shields
Blazed opposite.—vi. 305-306,