#WingedWordsWindsday: 03/23/2022 -- Urania and Her Daughters

 WINGED WORDS WINDSDAY

Compiled by Rob Chappell (@RHCLambengolmo)

Vol. 1, No. 21: March 23, 2022

 

 

Celebrating Women’s History Month

Episode #4: Urania and Her Daughters

 

Editor’s Note

                In Classical Greece and Rome, it was believed that the nine Muses were the divinities who inspired people who had devoted their lives to the pursuit of excellence in the arts and sciences. Urania, the Muse of astronomy, is the “star” of this week’s feature, and her “daughters” are women who have celebrated the wonders of the night sky in poetry. Keep looking up!

 

From Paradise Lost: Book 7, Lines 1-20

By John Milton (1608-1674)

Descend from Heaven, Urania, by that name

If rightly thou art called, whose voice divine

Following, above the Olympian hill I soar,

Above the flight of Pegasean wing!

The meaning, not the name, I call: for thou

Nor of the Muses nine, nor on the top

Of old Olympus dwellest; but, heavenly-born,

Before the hills appeared, or fountain flowed,

Thou with eternal Wisdom didst converse,

Wisdom thy sister, and with her didst play

In presence of the Almighty Father, pleased

With thy celestial song. Up led by thee

Into the Heaven of Heavens I have presumed,

An earthly guest, and drawn empyreal air,

Thy tempering: with like safety guided down

Return me to my native element:

Lest from this flying steed unreined, (as once

Bellerophon, though from a lower clime,)

Dismounted, on the Aleian field I fall,

Erroneous there to wander, and forlorn.

 

The Muse Urania inspires the Greek poet Aratus to write the Phaenomena, his classic poem on astronomy. (Image Credit: Public Domain)

 

“Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”

By Jane Taylor (1783-1824)

 

Twinkle, twinkle, little star,

How I wonder what you are,

Up above the world so high,

Like a diamond in the sky.

 

When the blazing Sun is set,

And the grass with dew is wet,

Then you show your little light,

Twinkle, twinkle, all the night.

 

Then the traveler in the dark

Thanks you for your tiny spark,

He could not see where to go

If you did not twinkle so.

 

In the dark blue sky you keep,

And often through my curtains peep,

For you never shut your eye

Till the Sun is in the sky.

 

As your bright and tiny spark

Lights the traveler in the dark,

Though I know not what you are,

Twinkle, twinkle, little star.

 

“Stars”

By Emily Brontë (1818-1848)

 

Ah! why, because the dazzling sun

Restored our Earth to joy,

Have you departed, every one,

And left a desert sky?

 

All through the night, your glorious eyes

Were gazing down in mine,

And, with a full heart’s thankful sighs,

I blessed that watch divine.

 

I was at peace, and drank your beams

As they were life to me;

And reveled in my changeful dreams,

Like petrel on the sea.

 

Thought followed thought, star followed star,

Through boundless regions, on;

While one sweet influence, near and far,

Thrilled through, and proved us one!

 

Why did the morning dawn to break

So great, so pure, a spell;

And scorch with fire the tranquil cheek,

Where your cool radiance fell?

 

Blood-red, he rose, and, arrow-straight,

His fierce beams struck my brow;

The soul of nature sprang, elate,

But mine sank sad and low!

 

My lids closed down, yet through their veil

I saw him, blazing, still,

And steep in gold the misty dale,

And flash upon the hill.

 

I turned me to the pillow, then,

To call back night, and see

Your worlds of solemn light, again,

Throb with my heart, and me!

 

It would not do—the pillow glowed,

And glowed both roof and floor;

And birds sang loudly in the wood,

And fresh winds shook the door;

 

The curtains waved, the wakened flies

Were murmuring round my room,

Imprisoned there, till I should rise,

And give them leave to roam.

 

Oh, stars, and dreams, and gentle night;

Oh, night and stars, return!

And hide me from the hostile light

That does not warm, but burn;

 

That drains the blood of suffering men;

Drinks tears, instead of dew;

Let me sleep through his blinding reign,

And only wake with you!

 

“What Do the Stars Do?

By Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

 

What do the stars do

Up in the sky,

Higher than the wind can blow,

Or the clouds can fly?

Each star in its own glory

Circles, circles still;

As it was lit to shine and set,

And do its Maker’s will.

 

“Stars”

By Marjorie Lowry Christie Pickthall (1883-1922)

 

Now in the West the slender Moon lies low,

And now Orion glimmers through the trees,

Clearing the Earth with even pace and slow,

And now the stately-moving Pleiades,

In that soft infinite darkness overhead

Hang jewel-wise upon a silver thread.

 

And all the lonelier stars that have their place,

Calm lamps within the distant southern sky,

And planet-dust upon the edge of space,

Look down upon the fretful world, and I

Look up to outer vastness unafraid

And see the stars which sang when Earth was made.

 

“Stars”

By Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)

 

Alone in the night

On a dark hill

With pines around me

Spicy and still,

 

And a heaven full of stars

Over my head,

White and topaz

And misty red;

 

Myriads with beating

Hearts of fire

That aeons

Cannot vex or tire;

 

Up the dome of heaven

Like a great hill,

I watch them marching

Stately and still,

 

And I know that I

Am honored to be

Witness

Of so much majesty.

 

“Arcturus”

By Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)

 

Arcturus brings the spring back

As surely now as when

He rose on eastern islands

For Grecian girls and men;

 

The twilight is as clear a blue,

The star as shaken and as bright,

And the same thought he gave to them

He gives to me to-night.

 

Arcturus is the fourth-brightest star in the night sky as seen from Earth, prominent on spring evenings in the Northern Hemisphere. (Photo Credit: NASA – Public Domain)