“Anne's lovers are phantom gentlemen, flitting by night with adulterous intent. They come and go by night, unchallenged. They skim over the river like midges, flicker against the dark, their doublets sewn with diamonds. The moon sees them, peering from her hood of bone, and Thames water reflects them, glimmering like fish, like pearls.”
“There was no moon but the night sky was a riot of crisp and glittering autumn stars. There were streetlights too and lights on buildings and on bridges which looked like earthbound stars and they glimmered repeated as they were reflected with the city in the night water of the Thames. It’s fairyland thought Richard.”
“She opened her eyes once again and let them drift across the scene laid out before her like a page from a storybook. Inky blackness hung above them as though painted in impasto in an opaque Prussian Blue. The impression it gave was of a sky hand-crafted out of felt with a pearl of a moon and a generous dusting of diamonds sprinkled on for the stars. A night dreams were made of.”
“Variations: IIGreen light, from the moon,Pours over the dark blue trees,Green light from the autumn moonPours on the grass ...Green light falls on the goblin fountainWhere hesitant lovers meet and pass. They laugh in the moonlight, touching hands,They move like leaves on the wind ...I remember an autumn night like this,And not so long ago,When other lovers were blown like leaves,Before the coming of snow.”
“Because the soul is like a flower that folds its petals when dark comes, and breathes not its fragrance into the phantoms of the night.”
“On this night of the Harvest Moon. They tossed bones into the “Bone Fire” and asked the yellow moon to shine its protection over them. (Today we call it a "Bonfire")”