TO THE LIGHTHOUSE

([Here Mr. Carmichael, who was readingVirgil, blew out his candle.It was midnight)]

3

But what after all is one night? A short space,especially when the darkness dims so soon, andso soon a bird sings, a cock crows, or a faint greenquickens, like a turning leaf, in the hollow of thewave. Night, however, succeeds to night. Thewinter holds a pack of them in store and dealsthem equally, evenly, with indefatigable fingers.They lengthen; they darken. Some of them holdaloft clear planets, plates of brightness. Theautumn trees, ravaged as they are, take on theflash of tattered flags kindling in the gloom of coolcathedral caves where gold letters on marble pagesgal.50describe death in battle and how bones bleach andburn [∧]faraway in Indian sands. The autumn treesgleam in the yellow moonlight, in the light ofharvest moons, the light which mellows the energyof labour, and smooths the stubble, and brings thewave lapping blue to the shore.

It seemed now as if, touched by humanpenitence and all its toil, divine goodness hadparted the curtain and displayed behind it, single,distinct, the hare erect; the wave falling; the boatoutsetgal50rocking, which, did we deserve them, should be198
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