They waken waves of thoughts that burst to foam: The living throb in me, the dead revive. Yon mantle clothes us: there, past mortal breath, Life glistens on the river of the death. It folds us flesh and dust; and have we knelt, And this is the soul's haven to have felt. George Meredith WHEN I HEARD THE LEARN'D ASTRONOMER WHEN I heard the learn'd astronomer; WH When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me; When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them; When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick; Till rising and gliding out, I wander'd off by my self, In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars. Walt Whitman THE AUGUST SKY PARKLING in splendor the Kite and the S Dipper Crossed the black welkin, and Scorpio's star Lit on the runway stag, herdsman, and skipper When I was dust, perhaps, bed-rock or spar. Dust, fire, or dew, or the wind of the morning, Foam of some sea-coast unknown, on the deep, Somewhere I lived in creation's adorning Still, on the nights when Joan walked with her sheep. What was I dreaming or where did I wander All through the Augusts before I could know? Crystal the Archer swept high over yonder: Close to the zenith burned Vega's blue snow. Glory on glory the night's coronation Circled the heavens before I was bornShone while I slept in the soul of creation Somewhere when Ruth wept for home in the corn. Glory on glory the night's coronation Throbbed in a beauty past dream or desire, Proud as I slept in the soul of creation — Breath of the morning or bed-rock or fire. Edith Wyatt AS NIGHT BEFORE TROY FROM The Iliad S when in heaven the stars about the moon Look beautiful, when all the winds are laid, And every height comes out, and jutting peak And valley, and the immeasurable heavens Break open to their highest, and all the stars Shine, and the Shepherd gladdens in his heart: So many a fire between the ships and stream Of Xanthus blazed before the towers of Troy, A thousand on the plain; and close by each Sat fifty in the blaze of burning fire; And eating hoary grain and pulse the steeds, Fixt by their cars, waited the golden dawn. Translation by Tennyson NOX ET AURORA FROM The Aeneid TECDUM orbem medium Nox horis acta subibat: N Haud segnis strato surgit Palinurus et omnes Explorat ventos, atque auribus aëra captat; Sidera cuncta notat tacito labentia caelo, Arcturum pluviasque Hyadas geminosque Tri ones, Armatumque auro circumspicit Oriona. Postquam cuncta videt caelo constare sereno, Cum procul obscuros colles humilemque videmus Vergil THE INFINITE SHINING HEAVENS T HE infinite shining heavens Rose and I saw in the night Showering sorrow and light. I saw them distant as heaven, Night after night in my sorrow Till lo! I looked in the dusk And a star had come down to me. Robert Louis Stevenson B LAST SONNET RIGHT star! would I were steadfast as thou art Not in lone splendor hung aloft the night, And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like Nature's patient sleepless Eremite, The moving waters at their priestlike task Of pure ablution round earth's human shores, Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask Of snow upon the mountains and the moors No-yet still steadfast, still unchangeable, Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast, To feel for ever its soft fall and swell, Awake for ever in a sweet unrest, Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, And so live ever- or else swoon to death. John Keats Q HYMN TO CYNTHIA UEEN and huntress, chaste and fair, State in wonted manner keep: Earth, let not thy envious shade Cynthia's shining orb was made Lay thy bow of pearl apart And thy crystal-shining quiver; Give unto the flying hart Space to breathe, how short soever: Goddess excellently bright! Ben Jonson AN APRIL NIGHT CLIMB with me, this April night, Into the lilac-scented sky, O climb with me till morn! Richard Le Gallienne |