The Piper at the Gates of Dawn

What a revelation this album was when I first heard it. "Lucifer Sam," "Flaming," and "Bike" really do it for me, but the whole thing is just pretty extraordinary.

"The line of the horizon was clear and hard against the sky, and in one particular quarter it showed black against a silvery climbing phosphorescence that grew and grew. At last, over the rim of the waiting earth the moon lifted with slow majesty till it swung clear of the horizon and rode off, free of moorings; and once more they began to see surfaces--meadows wide-spread, and quiet gardens, and the river itself from bank to bank, all softly disclosed, all washed clean of mystery and terror, all radiant again as by day, but with a difference that was tremendous. Their old haunts greeted them again in other raiment, as if they had slipped away and put on this pure new apparel and come quietly back, smiling as they shyly waited to see if they would be recognised again under it." - Chapter 7: "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn," from The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame.