I began trying to make my confession to Buddha; but tears choked me and my voice fell to a whisper. It was now quite dark. I went to the window and looked out. The Chapel stood high, and below it was what seemed like a precipitous ravine; it lay in a cup or hollow and the steep banks on either side were overgrown with tall trees, so that the place was very closed-in and dark.
The moon was some twenty days old and having risen late in the night was now shining with extraordinary brilliance. Here and there the moonlight pierced through the trees, making sudden patches of brightness; there was one such just at the foot of the cliff. Looking straight below me I could see what appeared to be a vast lake, but was indeed only a small drinking-pool.
Murasaki, The Sacred Tree