“...the long blue shadows of afternoon advanced before me like cheerful ghosts of last summer's growth, dancing past the withered flower borders and the stiff hedges to fall at the feet of a stone nymph, her cascade of water frozen in her urn.”

“Her blood is settled, and her joints are stiff;Life and these lips have long been separated:Death lies on her like an untimely frostUpon the sweetest flower of all the field.”

“The leaves were long, the grass was green,The hemlock-umbels tall and fair,And in the glade a light was seenOf stars in shadow shimmering.Tinuviel was dancing thereTo music of a pipe unseen,And light of stars was in her hair,And in her raiment glimmering.There Beren came from mountains cold,And lost he wandered under leaves,And where the Elven-river rolled.He walked along and sorrowing.He peered between the hemlock-leavesAnd saw in wonder flowers of goldUpon her mantle and her sleeves,And her hair like shadow following.Enchantment healed his weary feetThat over hills were doomed to roam;And forth he hastened, strong and fleet,And grasped at moonbeams glistening.Through woven woods in ElvenhomeShe lightly fled on dancing feet,And left him lonely still to roamIn the silent forest listening.He heard there oft the flying soundOf feet as light as linden-leaves,Or music welling underground,In hidden hollows quavering.Now withered lay the hemlock-sheaves,And one by one with sighing soundWhispering fell the beechen leavesIn the wintry woodland wavering.He sought her ever, wandering farWhere leaves of years were thickly strewn,By light of moon and ray of starIn frosty heavens shivering.Her mantle glinted in the moon,As on a hill-top high and farShe danced, and at her feet was strewnA mist of silver quivering.When winter passed, she came again,And her song released the sudden spring,Like rising lark, and falling rain,And melting water bubbling.He saw the elven-flowers springAbout her feet, and healed againHe longed by her to dance and singUpon the grass untroubling.Again she fled, but swift he came.Tinuviel! Tinuviel!He called her by her elvish name;And there she halted listening.One moment stood she, and a spellHis voice laid on her: Beren came,And doom fell on TinuvielThat in his arms lay glistening.As Beren looked into her eyesWithin the shadows of her hair,The trembling starlight of the skiesHe saw there mirrored shimmering.Tinuviel the elven-fair,Immortal maiden elven-wise,About him cast her shadowy hairAnd arms like silver glimmering.Long was the way that fate them bore,O'er stony mountains cold and grey,Through halls of iron and darkling door,And woods of nightshade morrowless.The Sundering Seas between them lay,And yet at last they met once more,And long ago they passed awayIn the forest singing sorrowless.”

“The evening advanced. The shadows lengthened. The waters of the lake grew pitchy black. The gliding of the ghostly swans became rare and more rare.”

“taking her hand he led her out into a broad stretch of hard sandy soil that the moon flooded with great splendor. They floated out like drifting moths under the rich hazy light, and as the fantastic symphony wept and exulted and wavered and despaired, Ardita's last sense of reality dropped away, and she abandonded her imagination to the dreamy summer scents of tropial flowers and the infinite starry spaces overhead, feeling that if she opened her eyes it would be to find herself dancing with a ghost in a land created by her own fantasy.”

“I think about my mother singing after lunch on a Summer afternoon, twirling in blue dress across the floor of her dressing room”