c. 1590, Robert Greene, The Scottish History of James the Fourth, Act 5, Chorus 6, Norman Sanders (editor), 1973, The Revels Plays: James the Fourth, page 128,
What gars this din of mirk and baleful harm, / Where everywean is all betaint with bloud?

Chill and mirk is the nightly blast, / Where Pindus' mountains rise, / And angry clouds are pouring fast / The vengeance of the skies.

It was by this time the mirkest of the gloaming, for they had purposely tarried on the journey that they might enter Edinburgh at dusk.

It's a lang, laigh, mirk chalmer, perishin' cauld in winter, an' no very dry even in the tap o' the simmer, for the manse stands near the burn.

The thickness of mirk is bad enough, but the thickness of white, illimitable ether is worse a thousandfold, for it closes the eye and mazes the wits.

Outside the chapel in the weeping mirk a squire held his shield, another his helm, a groom walked his horse.

The English cries of the soldiers were answered in English by the Boers, and slouch hat or helmet dimly seen in the mirk was the only badge of friend or foe.

And there they lay so near his little heart, / With whispering of things that happened not, / Until the serpent green had mirked / His manly vision in a way that lost / The anchorage of balanced sanity.

Mirk

Meaning

Noun

Verb

Adj

Rhymes