Great
restorer
of antiquity, great enchanter!
Thoreau - Excursions and Poems
When she enters on a clear field of great
extent in the heavens, and shines unobstructedly, he is glad. And when
she has fought her way through all the squadron of her foes, and rides
majestic in a clear sky unscathed, and there are no more any
obstructions in her path, he cheerfully and confidently pursues his
way, and rejoices in his heart, and the cricket also seems to express
joy in its song.
How insupportable would be the days, if the night with its dews and
darkness did not come to restore the drooping world. As the shades
begin to gather around us, our primeval instincts are aroused, and we
steal forth from our lairs, like the inhabitants of the jungle, in
search of those silent and brooding thoughts which are the natural
prey of the intellect.
Richter says that "the earth is every day overspread with the veil of
night for the same reason as the cages of birds are darkened, viz. ,
that we may the more readily apprehend the higher harmonies of thought
in the hush and quiet of darkness. Thoughts which day turns into smoke
and mist stand about us in the night as light and flames; even as the
column which fluctuates above the crater of Vesuvius, in the daytime
appears a pillar of cloud, but by night a pillar of fire. "
There are nights in this climate of such serene and majestic beauty,
so medicinal and fertilizing to the spirit, that methinks a sensitive
nature would not devote them to oblivion, and perhaps there is no man
but would be better and wiser for spending them out-of-doors, though
he should sleep all the next day to pay for it,--should sleep an
Endymion sleep, as the ancients expressed it,--nights which warrant
the Grecian epithet ambrosial, when, as in the land of Beulah, the
atmosphere is charged with dewy fragrance, and with music, and we take
our repose and have our dreams awake,--when the moon, not secondary to
the sun,--
"gives us his blaze again,
Void of its flame, and sheds a softer day.
Now through the passing cloud she seems to stoop,
Now up the pure cerulean rides sublime. "
Diana still hunts in the New England sky.
"In Heaven queen she is among the spheres.
She, mistress-like, makes all things to be pure.
Eternity in her oft change she bears;
She Beauty is; by her the fair endure.
"Time wears her not; she doth his chariot guide;
Mortality below her orb is placed;
By her the virtues of the stars down slide;
By her is Virtue's perfect image cast. "
The Hindoos compare the moon to a saintly being who has reached the
last stage of bodily existence.
Great restorer of antiquity, great enchanter! In a mild night when the
harvest or hunter's moon shines unobstructedly, the houses in our
village, whatever architect they may have had by day, acknowledge only
a master. The village street is then as wild as the forest. New and
old things are confounded. I know not whether I am sitting on the
ruins of a wall, or on the material which is to compose a new one.
Nature is an instructed and impartial teacher, spreading no crude
opinions, and flattering none; she will be neither radical nor
conservative. Consider the moonlight, so civil, yet so savage!
The light is more proportionate to our knowledge than that of day. It
is no more dusky in ordinary nights than our mind's habitual
atmosphere, and the moonlight is as bright as our most illuminated
moments are.
"In such a night let me abroad remain
Till morning breaks, and all's confused again. "
Of what significance the light of day, if it is not the reflection of
an inward dawn? --to what purpose is the veil of night withdrawn, if
the morning reveals nothing to the soul? It is merely garish and
glaring.
When Ossian, in his address to the sun, exclaims,--
"Where has darkness its dwelling?
Where is the cavernous home of the stars,
When thou quickly followest their steps,
Pursuing them like a hunter in the sky,--
Thou climbing the lofty hills,
They descending on barren mountains? "
who does not in his thought accompany the stars to their "cavernous
home," "descending" with them "on barren mountains"?
extent in the heavens, and shines unobstructedly, he is glad. And when
she has fought her way through all the squadron of her foes, and rides
majestic in a clear sky unscathed, and there are no more any
obstructions in her path, he cheerfully and confidently pursues his
way, and rejoices in his heart, and the cricket also seems to express
joy in its song.
How insupportable would be the days, if the night with its dews and
darkness did not come to restore the drooping world. As the shades
begin to gather around us, our primeval instincts are aroused, and we
steal forth from our lairs, like the inhabitants of the jungle, in
search of those silent and brooding thoughts which are the natural
prey of the intellect.
Richter says that "the earth is every day overspread with the veil of
night for the same reason as the cages of birds are darkened, viz. ,
that we may the more readily apprehend the higher harmonies of thought
in the hush and quiet of darkness. Thoughts which day turns into smoke
and mist stand about us in the night as light and flames; even as the
column which fluctuates above the crater of Vesuvius, in the daytime
appears a pillar of cloud, but by night a pillar of fire. "
There are nights in this climate of such serene and majestic beauty,
so medicinal and fertilizing to the spirit, that methinks a sensitive
nature would not devote them to oblivion, and perhaps there is no man
but would be better and wiser for spending them out-of-doors, though
he should sleep all the next day to pay for it,--should sleep an
Endymion sleep, as the ancients expressed it,--nights which warrant
the Grecian epithet ambrosial, when, as in the land of Beulah, the
atmosphere is charged with dewy fragrance, and with music, and we take
our repose and have our dreams awake,--when the moon, not secondary to
the sun,--
"gives us his blaze again,
Void of its flame, and sheds a softer day.
Now through the passing cloud she seems to stoop,
Now up the pure cerulean rides sublime. "
Diana still hunts in the New England sky.
"In Heaven queen she is among the spheres.
She, mistress-like, makes all things to be pure.
Eternity in her oft change she bears;
She Beauty is; by her the fair endure.
"Time wears her not; she doth his chariot guide;
Mortality below her orb is placed;
By her the virtues of the stars down slide;
By her is Virtue's perfect image cast. "
The Hindoos compare the moon to a saintly being who has reached the
last stage of bodily existence.
Great restorer of antiquity, great enchanter! In a mild night when the
harvest or hunter's moon shines unobstructedly, the houses in our
village, whatever architect they may have had by day, acknowledge only
a master. The village street is then as wild as the forest. New and
old things are confounded. I know not whether I am sitting on the
ruins of a wall, or on the material which is to compose a new one.
Nature is an instructed and impartial teacher, spreading no crude
opinions, and flattering none; she will be neither radical nor
conservative. Consider the moonlight, so civil, yet so savage!
The light is more proportionate to our knowledge than that of day. It
is no more dusky in ordinary nights than our mind's habitual
atmosphere, and the moonlight is as bright as our most illuminated
moments are.
"In such a night let me abroad remain
Till morning breaks, and all's confused again. "
Of what significance the light of day, if it is not the reflection of
an inward dawn? --to what purpose is the veil of night withdrawn, if
the morning reveals nothing to the soul? It is merely garish and
glaring.
When Ossian, in his address to the sun, exclaims,--
"Where has darkness its dwelling?
Where is the cavernous home of the stars,
When thou quickly followest their steps,
Pursuing them like a hunter in the sky,--
Thou climbing the lofty hills,
They descending on barren mountains? "
who does not in his thought accompany the stars to their "cavernous
home," "descending" with them "on barren mountains"?
