Hello
everyone –
Our
final weekly Quotemail of June is devoted to what my ancient Welsh forebears
would call “the country of the summer stars,” which I would interpret to
include the study and exploration of the vast cosmos that we see every night of
the year! :)
The
month of July is a great time to reflect on humanity’s first decades of space
exploration:
- July 20, 1969 = Apollo 11 (the first Moon landing)!
- July 20, 1976 = The Viking 1 probe lands on Mars.
- July 15, 2015 = First-ever flyby of the PLANET Pluto by the New Horizons probe.
- July 5, 2016 = The Juno probe arrives at Jupiter.
Here
are some poems and reflections to help us remember the past and build the
future of space exploration!
“Wanderers”
By
Walter de la Mare (1873-1956)
Wide
are the meadows of night,
And
daisies are shining there,
Tossing
their lovely dews,
Lustrous
and fair;
And
through these sweet fields go,
Wanderers
amid the stars --
Venus,
Mercury, Uranus, Neptune,
Saturn,
Jupiter, Mars.
‘Tired
in their silver, they move,
And
circling, whisper and say,
“Fair
are the blossoming meads of delight
Through
which we stray.”
“Eldorado”
By
Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)
Gaily
bedight,
A
gallant knight,
In
sunshine and in shadow,
Had
journeyed long,
Singing
a song,
In
search of Eldorado.
But
he grew old—
This
knight so bold—
And
o’er his heart a shadow—
Fell
as he found
No
spot of ground
That
looked like Eldorado.
And,
as his strength
Failed
him at length,
He
met a pilgrim shadow—
‘Shadow,’
said he,
‘Where
can it be—
This
land of Eldorado?’
‘Over
the Mountains
Of
the Moon,
Down
the Valley of the Shadow,
Ride,
boldly ride,’
The
shade replied,—
‘If
you seek for Eldorado!’
THE
LIGHT OF STARS
(A
SECOND PSALM OF LIFE)
The
night is come, but not too soon;
And sinking silently,
All silently, the little moon
Drops down behind the sky.
There is no light in earth or heaven
But the cold light of stars;
And the first watch of night is given
To the red planet Mars.
Is it the tender star of love?
The star of love and dreams?
Oh no! from that blue tent above
A hero's armor gleams.
And earnest thoughts within me rise,
When I behold afar,
Suspended in the evening skies,
The shield of that red star.
O star of strength! I see thee stand
And smile upon my pain;
Thou beckonest with thy mailed hand,
And I am strong again.
Within my breast there is no light
But the cold light of stars;
I give the first watch of the night
To the red planet Mars.
The star of the unconquered will,
He rises in my breast,
Serene, and resolute, and still,
And calm, and self-possessed.
And thou, too, whosoever thou art,
That readest this brief psalm,
As one by one thy hopes depart,
Be resolute and calm.
Oh, fear not in a world like this,
And thou shalt know erelong,
Know how sublime a thing it is
To suffer and be strong.
And sinking silently,
All silently, the little moon
Drops down behind the sky.
There is no light in earth or heaven
But the cold light of stars;
And the first watch of night is given
To the red planet Mars.
Is it the tender star of love?
The star of love and dreams?
Oh no! from that blue tent above
A hero's armor gleams.
And earnest thoughts within me rise,
When I behold afar,
Suspended in the evening skies,
The shield of that red star.
O star of strength! I see thee stand
And smile upon my pain;
Thou beckonest with thy mailed hand,
And I am strong again.
Within my breast there is no light
But the cold light of stars;
I give the first watch of the night
To the red planet Mars.
The star of the unconquered will,
He rises in my breast,
Serene, and resolute, and still,
And calm, and self-possessed.
And thou, too, whosoever thou art,
That readest this brief psalm,
As one by one thy hopes depart,
Be resolute and calm.
Oh, fear not in a world like this,
And thou shalt know erelong,
Know how sublime a thing it is
To suffer and be strong.
“On
the Beach at Night”
By
Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
On
the beach at night,
Stands
a child with her father,
Watching
the east, the autumn sky.
Up
through the darkness,
While
ravening clouds, the burial clouds, in black masses spreading,
Lower
sullen and fast athwart and down the sky,
Amid
a transparent clear belt of ether yet left in the east,
Ascends
large and calm the lord-star Jupiter,
And
nigh at hand, only a very little above,
Swim
the delicate sisters the Pleiades.
From
the beach the child holding the hand of her father,
Those
burial-clouds that lower victorious soon to devour all,
Watching,
silently weeps.
Weep
not, child,
Weep not, my darling,
Weep not, my darling,
With
these kisses let me remove your tears,
The
ravening clouds shall not long be victorious,
They
shall not long possess the sky, they devour the stars only in apparition,
Jupiter
shall emerge, be patient, watch again another night, the Pleiades shall emerge,
They
are immortal, all those stars both silvery and golden shall shine out again,
The
great stars and the little ones shall shine out again, they endure,
The
vast immortal suns and the long-enduring pensive moons shall again shine.
Then
dearest child mournest thou only for Jupiter?
Considerest
thou alone the burial of the stars?
Something
there is,
(With
my lips soothing thee, adding I whisper,
I
give thee the first suggestion, the problem and indirection,)
Something
there is more immortal even than the stars,
(Many
the burials, many the days and nights, passing away,)
Something
that shall endure longer even than lustrous Jupiter
Longer
than sun or any revolving satellite,
Or
the radiant sisters the Pleiades.
Fungi
from Yuggoth (A Sonnet Cycle)
By
H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937)
[Editor’s
Note: Yuggoth is the name of Pluto in HPL’s “weird fiction” and poetic
writings.]
Sonnet
XIV: “Star-Winds”
It
is a certain hour of twilight glooms,
Mostly
in autumn, when the star-wind pours
Down
hilltop streets, deserted out-of-doors,
But
shewing early lamplight from snug rooms.
The
dead leaves rush in strange, fantastic twists,
And
chimney-smoke whirls round with alien grace,
Heeding
geometries of outer space,
While
Fomalhaut peers in through southward mists.
This
is the hour when moonstruck poets know
What
fungi sprout in Yuggoth, and what scents
And
tints of flowers fill Nithon’s continents,
Such
as in no poor earthly garden blow.
Yet
for each dream these winds to us convey,
A
dozen more of ours they sweep away!
Quotemail
will resume its regular fortnightly publication on Friday, July 13th.
Happy
4th of July! :)
Rob