phase the fourth >> one hundred and sixty

She would answer no more than a bare affirmative, so great was the emotion aroused in her at the thought of going through the world with him as his own familiar friend. Her feelings almost filled her ears like a babble of waves, and surged up to her eyes. She put her hand in his, and thus they went on, to a place where the reflected sun glared up from the river, under a bridge with a molten-metallic glow that dazzled their eyes, though the sun itself was hidden by the bridge. They stood still, wherupon little furred and feathered heads popped up from the smooth surface of the water; but, finding that the disturbing presences had paused, and not passed by, they disappeared again. Upon this river-brink they lingered till the fog began to close round them - which was very early in the evening at this time of the year - settling on the lashes of her eyes, where it rested like crystals, and on his brows and hair.

[From Tess of the D'Urbervilles]
[OK, now read it with notes because I am in love with this paragraph]

She would answer no more than a bare affirmative, so great was the emotion aroused in her at the thought of going through the world with him as his own familiar friend. Her feelings almost filled her ears like a babble of waves, and surged up to her eyes. She put her hand in his, and thus they went on, to a place where the reflected sun glared up from the river, under a bridge with a molten-metallic glow that dazzled their eyes, though the sun itself was hidden by the bridge. They stood still, wherupon little furred and feathered heads popped up from the smooth surface of the water; but, finding that the disturbing presences had paused, and not passed by, they disappeared again. Upon this river-brink they lingered till the fog began to close round them - which was very early in the evening at this time of the year - settling on the lashes of her eyes, where it rested like crystals, and on his brows and hair.

Similar colors for a letter or two shows alliteration and similar sounds.
Like is highlighted because there are two similes.
The bolded words represent a bridge or something that covers.
The red words represent body parts.
The italicized words have to do with water.
The brows and lashes are similar to the bridge, because they are part of the same metaphor.
The eyes relate to water because of the film over them.

I believe the glow that the passage refers to is a metaphor for the hopes and aspirations of the couple, you know, the light at the end of the tunnel, or the reflection of the sun under a bridge. I believe the sun is a metaphor for the future itself, because they can't see it in the present, they can only get a glimpse, a reflection, of what is to come. The bridge, their youth, blocks them from seeing their true future. The crystals relate to beauty, to the beauty of youthful hopes of the future and the beauty of the moment, and this is extended, because it settles on their lashes, their hair, their brows, which all allude to their youth, meaning that the moment draws on their youth and creates beauty. Their love is untested, true, young love, protected by a bridge that they have not yet wandered from underneath. The fog shows that they are blind in their youth, that they cannot see the future, though such blindness may be bliss, as crystals form on their lashes. Such beauty comes early in life just as the fog comes early in the evening. Finally, the heads of the animals popping up allude to worries they may have for the future. Because they need not worry yet, they think of them only for a moment, and because the "disturbing presence" of time, of experience, has not passed, they return back into the water.
Awesome stuf in this paragraph: alliteration, simile, metaphor, leitmotif (water, bridge, body parts)