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Lots of puzzles on this site take some time to solve. Nothing wrong with that, but I'll try to introduce a short puzzle every now and then :)

Gold is my meal;
Silver, I free;
My colour reveals
How my converse did be.

What am I?

Apart from the hint in the title...

Hint 1:

The light I close
Must break for all;
The unseen grows
Amidst my fall.

Edit:

I changed the word counter to converse because I did not know "counter" could mean "timer" (silly me!). Sorry about that! I put this edit here in case users were working on the version of this riddle that included the former word.

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7 Answers 7

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Thanks to the explication of @Gareth McCaughan♦ :

The dusk

Gold is my meal

The colour of the sun during the dusk

Silver, I free

During the dusk, the moon appears, silver referred to its colour

My colour reveals
How my converse did be.
(thanks to @jafe)

It's about the dawn (opposite of the dusk), the colour of the sky are the same when the sun rises or sets.

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  • $\begingroup$ The last part of your answer is unfortunately not interpreted correctly, but does make sense! (However, if you interpret it as intended, I think it will make more sense, though your answer is still great — and predominantly correct!) $\endgroup$
    – Mr Pie
    Apr 18, 2019 at 13:14
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    $\begingroup$ Sounds good! Maybe rot13(Gur pbybhe bs gur fxl ng qhfx vf fvzvyne gb gung ng qnja (vgf pbairefr))? $\endgroup$
    – Jafe
    Apr 18, 2019 at 13:18
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    $\begingroup$ @user477343 No need for apologies, and it's not like I'm hurting for lack of rep here. $\endgroup$
    – Gareth McCaughan ♦
    Apr 18, 2019 at 14:34
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    $\begingroup$ It's less about us knowing that it's rot13 and more about the userscript that allows people to translate it on mouseover rather than needing to copy/paste. :) $\endgroup$
    – Somebody
    Apr 18, 2019 at 16:06
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    $\begingroup$ Apologies for the one week delay! I totally forgot about this question, and I needed @Rubio ♦ to remind me (this being the second time, actually). Congratulations on the tick! $\color{green}{\checkmark}$ $\endgroup$
    – Mr Pie
    Apr 25, 2019 at 3:51
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Doubtful answer

So the answer seems obvious except that there's one couplet I can't make sense of. I think you are

night.

Gold is my meal;

The golden sun, as it sets.

Silver, I free;

The silvery moon, becoming visible at night.

My colour reveals
How my converse did be.

This is the bit I can't make sense of. Perhaps the colour is (say) "midnight blue", which is blue just as the daytime sky is, or something. That doesn't feel like the answer, though.

Title: Time to settle down

Bedtime.

Hint:

The light I close
Must break for all;

Daylight shines pretty much everywhere, at one time or another.

The unseen grows
Amidst my fall.

As night falls, the shadows lengthen and everything becomes harder to see.

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    $\begingroup$ You are so close! Your answer would have been correct if it was not for that couplet you can't make full sense of. In fact, you are that close, the answer is literally in this answer! Keep trying! :D $\endgroup$
    – Mr Pie
    Apr 18, 2019 at 12:48
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    $\begingroup$ @Gareth McCaughan♦ With your answer and your explications, rot13(V guvax gur nafjre vf : gur qhfx. Abg gur avtug ohg whfg orsber.) $\endgroup$
    – Narlore
    Apr 18, 2019 at 12:56
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    $\begingroup$ Yeah, yeah, I know it's poetry and all that, but could we, as a humankind, please stop with the "moon is mostly visible at night" nonsense, please and thank you. :-) $\endgroup$
    – Bass
    Apr 18, 2019 at 14:53
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    $\begingroup$ @Bass It's more visible and more often visible at night. Calm down. $\endgroup$
    – Gareth McCaughan ♦
    Apr 18, 2019 at 15:53
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    $\begingroup$ @user477343: Seemed reasonable. Probably daybreak or something similar then $\endgroup$
    – Selkie
    Apr 18, 2019 at 19:39
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It's a:

A timer, or a stopwatch.

Explanation:

Gold is my meal

The gold medal

Silver, I free

The second place medal

My colour reveals

A countdown timer can change color

How my counter did be!

Counting something... It's counting time!

Look in the title.

Settle down for the awards!

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  • $\begingroup$ Oh no... you have defined the word "counter" in a way I have never used! I always used "timer". By "counter" I meant "opposite". I am so sorry for the confusion. I will upvote though, for your attempt... but I must inform you that this is not the answer and I will edit the riddle accordingly. I always thought that "counter" meant "opposite" (e.g. "counter-clockwise", "counter-argument"). You made a nice try, putting this aside! $\endgroup$
    – Mr Pie
    Apr 18, 2019 at 12:27
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    $\begingroup$ Interesting... I'll try it again. $\endgroup$
    – CStafford-14
    Apr 18, 2019 at 12:40
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I suspect the word you're looking for is

Sunset

The title:

Time to settle down. Odd-numbered syllables reference various aspects of a sunset: it's a time of day, "set" is obviously part of the word, and it's when (from a terrestrial point of view) the sun appears to be traveling "down".

Gold is my meal;

As the sun descends, it appears to be "swallowed" by the horizon; loads of myths in various cultures are inspired by this imagery.

Silver, I free;

As the sun's light fades, it gets easier to see the moon and stars, which take on a silver color.

My colour reveals / How my converse did be.

The opposite of a sunset is a sunrise, but they're both associated with the same bright-orange color. Crayola seems pretty opinionated about which colors are "sunset orange" and which are "Florida sunrise", but otherwise it's pretty much the same. Perhaps the intent behind this clue is that, in most parts of the world, the parts of the sky that appear darkest at this time of day are exactly those that will be brightest when the sun rises again. (Or maybe they just both have "sun" in their name.)

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  • $\begingroup$ On comparison, this is largely the same as @Narlore 's answer, and they definitely got here first. :P $\endgroup$
    – Jesse Amano
    Apr 18, 2019 at 18:08
  • $\begingroup$ Yeah, this is correct, but the interpretation of the last clue is incorrect. I think that part was the hardest, but I have a comment under @Narlore's post describing what I meant by the clue in Rot13, if you want to see that. Again, the rest of your answer is correct, though, so well done on that! But, as you said, it is largely the same as Narlore's answer, so I won't be giving that user's answer the tick as opposed to yours, unfortunately. Sorry about that! At least you made a great attempt! :) $\endgroup$
    – Mr Pie
    Apr 18, 2019 at 18:16
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It may not have anything to do with it, but still the only thing worse than starting and failing is not to start at all ,So after this little introduction my answer for now is:

shadow

explanation: Gold is my meal;

means:

Gold-means the sun,The shadow is physically created by any body that returns a certain percentage of the energy (light, In nature sunlight ) that harms it. Some of the energy is reflected according to the angle of impact and some of the energy is reflected in diffuse fashion in all directions

Silver, I free;

silver-moon,At night the shadow is seen only occasionally, and is not visible at all on nights when there is no moon

My colour reveals How my converse did be.

Light can reach the shadow region from other sources, or from the main source indirectly, through repetition or bypass. If there is no light at all, it looks completely black ("full shadow"), or if it looks dark relative to its surroundings (partial shadow), that means that some of the light has reached the shadow region. The most frequent use of the word shadow is in the context of concealing sunlight.

Hint 1:

The light I close Must break for all; -Without light there isn't shadow The unseen grows Amidst my fall.-The saying goes: "When small people cast a large shadow, it is a sign that the sun is setting" - that means that a shadow can increase things that a person doesn't see so much

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  • $\begingroup$ If there is no light at all, there is also no shadow. A shadow is a dark area or shape produced by a body coming between rays of light and a surface. So no light does not produce a "full shadow" but just means "full darkness", and of course, there is a difference. Nice try, though! Your answer nearly worked. +1 :) $\endgroup$
    – Mr Pie
    Apr 19, 2019 at 2:51
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My answer is

"daytime".

Don't really know if there is something else I need to add.

EDIT: As being advised, here is my explanation:

Gold is my meal; Silver, I free;

I feast on golden sunlight, the silver moon is freed from its job when I come in

The rest of the riddle also fits quite well, but my main tip was this from user477343's reply to the top answer: "the answer is literally in this answer! Keep trying! :D"

The word "daylight" is indeed part of the explanation in the top answer given by Gareth McCaughan

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    $\begingroup$ Hi @Mihai, welcome to Puzzling SE! You are right that your current answer needs something else - an explanation for why you think your answer works for the puzzle. Answers without explanation are generally deleted, so feel free to edit your answer to include one. Thanks! $\endgroup$
    – HTM
    Apr 19, 2019 at 4:40
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Reading everyone's interactions and comparing them with the original riddle, I've come to the conclusion that

It's night or light or sunlight

Although it doesn't consume golden anything or free silver anything, as that makes no sense scientifically. It also has no hue without a target reflective surface.

It could also be

The sun, moon, or earth

Although, again, none of them are consuming or freeing gold or silver anything.

It cannot be

Time itself

Because, and I keep saying this, it doesn't consume anything and is a concept.

Also the line "How my converse did be" doesn't sound like proper English and perturbs me.

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    $\begingroup$ Welcome to the Puzzling Stack Exchange (PSE)! Glad you posted your first answer! (Ensure to check out the tour!) First of all, the sentence does make sense, verified by Grammarly itself, with the exception that it would be better to replace the word "be" with "exist" (but they mean the exact same thing). Regarding your conclusion, this is unfortunately not the intended answer, though very close; the intended answer does make more sense, so there is reason to back up that it fits better as an answer than this. Nice try for a first answer, but! :) $\endgroup$
    – Mr Pie
    Apr 18, 2019 at 16:06
  • $\begingroup$ I've edited my response $\endgroup$
    – IntegratedCyan
    Apr 18, 2019 at 16:07
  • $\begingroup$ No, still not it... but you got a tad closer with your third conclusion ;) $\endgroup$
    – Mr Pie
    Apr 18, 2019 at 16:08
  • $\begingroup$ Added more answers. $\endgroup$
    – IntegratedCyan
    Apr 18, 2019 at 16:22
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    $\begingroup$ The first celestial object mentioned in your answer is the closest to being linked with the intended answer. There is a reference of this in the riddle (which I'm sure you'll find), so that should lead you on the right path. Also, for the benefit of writing an acceptable answer here on this site, try sticking to just one or two answers; it might require more time, but your edits appear like you are trying things out and hoping for the best. I will thus add a hint: copy-and-paste the following "random" text in Rot13: Gvzr gb FRGgyr QBJA! $\endgroup$
    – Mr Pie
    Apr 18, 2019 at 16:29

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