Dawn Like Roses

"Un-Man," X.

"The mountains were a shadowy looming. Dawn lay like roses on their peaks. The air was fresh and chill, strong with the smell of pines, and there was dew underfoot and alarmed birds clamoring into the sky. Far below him, the river thundered and brawled." (pp. 75-76)

What is my point here? My point is just enjoy that description. It could have been from almost any work by Poul Anderson between the fight and chase scenes. Since the Rostomily Brothers habitually quote Shakespeare, we should compare:

"But, look, the morn, in russet mantel clad,

"Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill."

- from Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 1, which caught my attention when we were shown the Laurence Olivier Hamlet at school in the 1960s. I was then reading Poul Anderson and never suspected that, in the twenty-first century, I would compare Shakespeare and Anderson on a world-wide computer network.