midnight
`` Ay , from heaven to heaven -- from world to world ! '' said Eugenius , ecstatically . They ascended as the sun declined ; when they climbed more slowly , the mountain summits like rising , loosened branches , concealed them from the luminary . They hastened on into the evening glimmer , which was already advancing , but when they had reached the mountain where their cottage stood , the eternal mountains stepped before the sun ; -- the earth then veiled her graces and her cities , adoring heaven , before it looked upon her with all its star-eyes , while the waterfalls laid aside their rainbows , -- and the earth spread higher for heaven , which was bending over her with out-stretched cloud-arms , a gauze of golden exhalations , and hung it from one mountain to another , and the icebergs were set on fire , so that they glared even to midnight , while opposite to them on the grave of the sun was raised a towering funeral pile of clouds , forming the evening glow and the evening ashes . But through the glimmering veil kind heaven let its evening tears fall deep into the earth , even upon the humblest grass and the smallest flower . Oh , Eugenius , how great then did thy soul become ! The life of earth lay at a distance and far below thee , free from all the distortions which we see in it , because we stand too near it , as the decorations of shorter scenes change from landscapes to mis-shapen strokes when we look at them closely .