In the little harbour made of willow leaves and moonlight, the boat lay still at last, and Marlow the little turtle slept down at the very bottom of sleep, where it is warm and quiet and nothing can hurry you.
And there, in that safe and gathered place, the good dreams began to come.
They did not come all at once. They came the way slow things come on a calm night, one at a time, soft as moths landing on a leaf. The willow held the boat gently, and the dreams drifted in through the green hush the way moonlight drifts in through a window when somebody has left the curtain open just a little.
The first dream was a small one.
Marlow dreamed of the bright meadow he had floated past long hours ago, only now it was a meadow made of sleep, and every blade of grass was soft, and every flower nodded its head as if it too were dozing. He wandered there a while in his dream, light as a feather, and the grass did not even bend beneath him, and a hundred drowsy fireflies blinked their slow gold lights to show him the way.
Then that dream drifted off, the way a little boat drifts off, and another came.
He dreamed of the moon's long silver road across the water, and in the dream he could walk right out upon it. It was not slippery and it was not cold. It was smooth and warm as the top of a sun-warmed stone, and it led on and on across the gentle dark, and wherever it led was somewhere good. He walked a little way along it, and the moon walked with him, near and kind, and neither of them was in any hurry at all.
And the willow, holding the boat, seemed to know what he was dreaming, and she swayed her long branches the smallest bit, the way you rock a cradle without quite meaning to, just to keep the good dream going.
Then that dream drifted off too, soft as breath, and the last one came.
He dreamed the gentlest dream of all. He dreamed that he was exactly where he was: in a small safe harbour, held by something kind, with the whole great patient night keeping watch all around him. He dreamed of being warm. He dreamed of being safe. He dreamed of being home. And because that one was already true, it was the easiest dream in all the world to dream, and he sank down into it the way you sink into a bed that has been waiting for you all day long.
Outside the willow, the night went on being quietly itself. The moon held her place. The slow and sleepy star kept its low light burning. The river lay flat and shining and made no sound at all. And the long leaves swayed, and swayed, slower and slower, keeping their gentle hold.
There was nothing left to do now but dream.
So Marlow dreamed his warm and quiet dreams, gathered in the harbour of leaves, and the dreams kept him good company through the deep middle of the night, and not one of them was ever frightening, and not one of them ever left him alone.
The willow breathed her long green breath.
The water lay still beneath.
And the good dreams came and went, soft as moths, soft as moonlight, all the night through, until the first pale light of morning came walking quietly up the river to find him.
Goodnight, Marlow. Goodnight, little harbour of dreams. Goodnight.