"I'll take you as far as the cottage ... it's right on the way, you
know."
"All right, but where are you going?"
"Into the kitchen to get a lantern."
"The moon is almost as bright as day. We won't need it."
We stepped out into the warm, scented night. In a mad flood of silver
the moon reigned high in the sky, dark and bright with the contours and
shades of its continents and craters, as if nearer the earth than it had
ever been before....
"This night reminds me of those lines in Marlowe's _Doctor Faustus_,
the ones that follow after 'Is this the face that launched a thousand
ships, and burnt the topless towers of Ilion?' which are, to me, a
trifle over-rhetorical ... the ensuing lines are more lovely:
"'Fair as the evening air--
"'Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars,' or is it 'ten thousand
stars'?"
Hildreth turned her face up to me. Her arm went through mine. She drew
my arm close against her body and held it tight in silent response for a
quiet interval....
"You _are_ a poet ... a _real_ poet ... and," she dropped her voice,
"and, what is more, a real man, too!" there was a world of compassion in
her voice....
"--You remember Blake's evening star--that 'washed the dusk with
silver?'"
"Jesus, how beautiful!" I cried.
We were standing in front of her cottage, that darkled in the trees.
Suddenly, roused by our voices, like some sweet, low, miraculous thing,
a little bird sang a few bars of song, sweet and low, in the bushes
somewhere, and stopped....
"Hildreth, don't let's go to bed yet." I caught her arm in my hands,
"it's too beautiful ... to go to bed."