midnight
And at all these things the little Wild Thing rejoiced elvishly . And it left London far behind it , reddening the sky , and could distinguish no longer its unlovely roar , but heard again the noises of the night . And now it would come through a hamlet glowing and comfortable in the night ; and now to the dark , wet , open fields again ; and many an owl it overtook as they drifted through the night , a people friendly to the Elf-folk . Sometimes it crossed wide rivers , leaping from star to star ; and , choosing its way as it went , to avoid the hard rough roads , came before midnight to the East Anglian lands . And it heard there the shout of the North Wind , who was dominant and angry , as he drove southwards his adventurous geese ; while the rushes bent before him chaunting plaintively and low , like enslaved rowers of some fabulous trireme , bending and swinging under blows of the lash , and singing all the while a doleful song . And it felt the good dank air that clothes by night the broad East Anglian lands , and came again to some old perilous pool where the soft green mosses grew , and there plunged downward and downward into the dear dark water till it felt the homely ooze once more coming up between its toes . Thence , out of the lovely chill that is in the heart of the ooze , it arose renewed and rejoicing to dance upon the image of the stars .