This music crept by me on the waters

White and gold ionic pillars in St Magnus

After the scene of uninvolved sex, the typist puts a record on the gramophone. The music seeps out onto the street. The quotation is a continuation of a previous allusion to The Tempest.

The music has a healing quality, introducing a rare moment of tranquility in the poem. The music is answered by the sound of a mandolin, and we hear the chatter of the workers of Billingsgate Fish Market (happier incarnations of the Fisher King) in a pub by the river.

Nearby stands the church of St Magnus the Martyr, the beauty of which  cannot be expressed (inexplicable) in words: it is a sudden revelation of the possibility of redemption.

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