Days [ ) Eclipse | Virginia Woolf, 1931

Schoolchildren preparing to watch an eclipse, Maywood, Illinois, 1963

“How then does light return to the world after the eclipse of the sun? Miraculously.
Frailly. In thin stripes. It hangs like a glass cage. It is a hoop to be fractured by a
tiny jar. There is a spark there. Next moment a flush of dun. Then a vapour as if
earth were breathing in and out, once, twice, for the first time. Then under the
dullness someone walks with a green light. Then off twists a white wraith. The
woods throb blue and green, and gradually the fields drink in red, gold, brown.
Suddenly a river snatches a blue light. The earth absorbs colour like a sponge
slowly drinking water. It puts on weight; rounds itself; hangs pendent; settles
and swings beneath our feet.”

Virginia Woolf, The Waves, 1931