114 OLD PLYMOUTH TRAILS 



I do not recall hearing him sing on pitch black 

 nights. Starshine is enough for him, but I am 

 convinced that he is only half nocturnal and that 

 he watches for signs of moonlight as eagerly as 

 I do. Last night I saw the glint of it in the 

 upper sky an hour before the moon rose, a silvery 

 shine which did not touch the lower atmosphere, 

 but shot athwart the higher stars like a ghost of 

 aurora. The whippoor-will saw it, too, and be- 

 gan his call, which I do not find a melancholy 

 plaint, but rather an eager asking. It was a voice 

 of shrill longing, sounding out of luminous lone- 

 liness after the moon began to silver all things. 

 Slowly, like a benediction, this silvery luminosity 

 descended till it touched the tops of eastward hills 

 with the softest imaginable glow and filled all the 

 sky above them with light. The glow of the sun 

 drives the darkness before it and then appears. 

 The glow of the moon is so much the more gentle 

 in that it fills the world with radiance and leaves 

 the darkness, which it permeates, but does not 

 destroy. It is a newer evangel, which does not 

 seek to rebuild the world, but simply takes it as 

 it is and fills it with clear fire, adding to its rough 

 vigor purity of motive. I do not see how any- 

 one who loves moonlight can be bad, or even 



