#WingedWordsWindsday: 12/1/2021 -- Celebrate the Holidays with the Evenstar!

 

WINGED WORDS WINDSDAY

Compiled by Rob Chappell (@RHCLambengolmo)

Vol. 1, No. 5: December 1, 2021

 

 

Celebrating the Holidays with the Evenstar

 

Editor’s Note

                The planet Venus is shining brightly in the early evening sky, visible as a brilliant starlike object above the southwestern horizon as dusk turns into night. Venus is hard to miss, as it’s the third-brightest object in our sky, after the Sun and Moon. Here are some poems about the planet Venus in its aspect as the Evening Star.

 

“Ëala Ëarendel engla beorhtast,

ofer middan-geard monnum sended.”

“Hail Ëarendel, brightest of angels,

over Middle-Earth to humankind sent.”

à Cynewulf (Old English, 9th Century CE)

 

“To the Planet Venus”

By William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

What strong allurement draws, what spirit guides,

Thee, Vesper! brightening still, as if the nearer

Thou com’st to man’s abode the spot grew dearer

Night after night? True is it Nature hides

Her treasures less and less. Man now presides

In power, where once he trembled in his weakness;

Science advances with gigantic strides;

But are we aught enriched in love and meekness?

Aught dost thou see, bright Star! of pure and wise

More than in humbler times graced human story;

That makes our hearts more apt to sympathize

With heaven, our souls more fit for future glory,

When Earth shall vanish from our closing eyes,

Ere we lie down in our last dormitory?

 

“To the Evening Star”

By William Blake (1757-1827)

Thou fair-haired angel of the evening,

Now, whilst the Sun rests on the mountains, light

Thy bright torch of love; thy radiant crown

Put on, and smile upon our evening bed!

Smile on our loves, and while thou drawest the

Blue curtains of the sky, scatter thy silver dew

On every flower that shuts its sweet eyes

In timely sleep. Let thy west wind sleep on

The lake; speak silence with thy glimmering eyes,

And wash the dusk with silver. Soon, full soon,

Dost thou withdraw; then the wolf rages wide,

And then the lion glares through the dun forest:

The fleeces of our flocks are covered with

Thy sacred dew: protect them with thine influence!

 

“The Evening Star”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

Lo! in the painted oriel of the West,

Whose panes the sunken Sun incarnadines,

Like a fair lady at her casement, shines

The Evening Star, the star of love and rest!

And then anon she doth herself divest

Of all her radiant garments, and reclines

Behind the somber screen of yonder pines,

With slumber and soft dreams of love oppressed.

O my beloved, my sweet Hesperus!

My Morning and my Evening Star of love!

My best and gentlest lady! even thus,

As that fair planet in the sky above,

Dost thou retire unto thy rest at night,

And from thy darkened window fades the light.

 

“February Twilight”

By Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)

I stood beside a hill

Smooth with new-laid snow,

A single star looked out

From the cold evening glow.

There was no other creature

That saw what I could see –

I stood and watched the Evening Star

As long as it watched me.

 

“Evening Star”

By H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937)

I saw it from that hidden, silent place

Where the old wood half shuts the meadow in.

It shone through all the sunset’s glories — thin

At first, but with a slowly brightening face.

Night came, and that lone beacon, amber-hued,

Beat on my sight as never it did of old;

The Evening Star — but grown a thousandfold

More haunting in this hush and solitude.

It traced strange pictures on the quivering air —

Half-memories that had always filled my eyes —

Vast towers and gardens; curious seas and skies

Of some dim life — I never could tell where.

But now I knew that through the cosmic dome

Those rays were calling from my far, lost home.

 

The planet Venus, as photographed by the space probe Mariner 10 in 1974. (Photo Credit: NASA – Public Domain)