LIFESTYLE

Looking Up: Night sky has long inspired poets

Peter Becker
Moonrise on the Coast (1863) by John William Casilear Public domain

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The merry round of stars continue their never-ending romp. Every clear night we can see a menagerie of characters imagined as constellations, the stars themselves blissfully ignorant of the tales we create. As the heavenly realm boldly unveils before our eyes with the deepening of dusk’s withering light, the poetry of the cosmos comes alive to our senses.

At least an open cluster’s worth of bards and rhymers have been so inspired to pen their thoughts of the Universe on paper, in poetic verse. Space is unlimited except in this column, so only a few examples can be given. These are in the public domain.

WHEN I HEARD THE LEARN’D ASTRONOMER

When I heard the learn’d astronomer,

When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,

When I was shown the charts and 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 myself,

In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,

Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

– Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

LOCKSLEY HALL

“Many a night from yonder ivied casement, ere I went to rest,

Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the West.

Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising thro’ the mellow shade...”

- Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

THE OLD ASTRONOMER TO HIS PUPIL

Reach me down my Tycho Brahe, I would know him when we meet,

When I share my later science, sitting humbly at his feet;

He may know the law of all things, yet be ignorant of how

We are working to completion, working on from then to now.

Pray remember that I leave you all my theory complete,

Lacking only certain data for your adding, as is meet,

And remember men will scorn it, ‘tis original and true,

And the obliquy of newness may fall bitterly on you.

But, my pupil, as my pupil you have learned the worth of scorn,

You have laughed with me at pity, we have joyed to be forlorn,

What for us are all distractions of men’s fellowship and smiles;

What for us the Goddess Pleasure with her meretricious smiles.

You may tell that German College that their honor comes too late,

But they must not waste repentance on the grizzly savant’s fate.

Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;

I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.

– By Sarah Williams (1837 - 1868), an English poet.

Robert Frost (1874-1963) had several poems with the night sky in mind.

Here’s a few lines he wrote about meteors, in:

“A LOOSE MOUNTAIN (TELESCOPIC)”:

Did you stay up last night (the Magi did)

To see the star shower known as Leonid

That once a year by hand or apparatus

Is so mysteriously pelted at us ?

It is but fiery puffs of dust and pebbles,

No doubt directed at our heads as rebels

In having taken artificial light

Against the ancient sovereignty of night.

A fusillade of blanks and empty flashes,

It never reaches earth except as ashes

Of which you feel no least touch on your face

Nor find in dew the slightest cloudy trace.

Several web sites list astronomical poems. Simply search under “astronomy poems.”

Full Moon is on August 29. There are many poems about the Moon. Here’s one by Thoreau:

The full-orbed moon with unchanged ray

Mounts up the eastern sky,

Not doomed to these short nights for aye,

But shining steadily.

She does not wane, but my fortune,

Which her rays do not bless,

My wayward path declineth soon,

But she shines not the less.

And if she faintly glimmers here,

And paled is her light,

Yet alway in her proper sphere

She’s mistress of the night.

- Henry David Thoreau

Your comments, questions and odes may be sent to news@neagle.com.

Keep looking up!