Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE ATSRONOMER, by CONSTANCE CAROLINE WOODHILL NADEN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE ATSRONOMER, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: White, cold, and sacred is my chosen home
Last Line: Shone clear, before I die.
Subject(s): Astronomy & Astronomers


WHITE, cold, and sacred is my chosen home,
A seat for gods, a mount divine;
And from the height of this eternal dome,
Sky, sea, and earth are mine.

All these I love, but only heaven is near,
Only the tranquil stars I know;
I see the map of earth, but never hear
Life's tumult far below.

Bright hieroglyphs I read in heaven's book;
But oft, with eyes too dim for these,
In half-regretful ignorance I look
On common fields and trees.

Scant fare for wife and child the fisher gains
From yon broad belt of lucent grey;
Rude peasants till those green and golden plains;
Am I more wise than they?

Oh, far less glad! And yet, could I descend
And breathe the lowland air again,
How should I find a brother or a friend
'Mid earth-contented men?

Though, while I sat beside my household fire,
Some dear, dear hand should clasp my own,
Must I not pine with home-sick, sharp desire
For this my mountain throne?

I were impatient of the narrowed skies,
Yes, even of the clasping hand;
And she, sad gazing in my restless eyes,
Would haply understand,

And know my fevered yearning to depart,
To dwell once more alone and free:
Well might I love, yet needs must break the heart
That puts its trust in me.

Yet hope and ecstasy desert me not,
But coldly shine, like moonlit snows;
This earthly dream, renounced yet unforgot,
To heavenly splendour grows.

For oft, when sleep has lulled a brain o'erwrought,
Strange light across my brow is thrown;
The glorious incarnation of my thought,
Urania stands alone.

She, passionless, of no fond woman born,
Towers awful in her virgin grace;
Calmly she smiles; the first faint rose of morn
Flushes her sovereign face.

Her atmosphere of white unswerving rays
Athwart the fading moonlight swims;
Rare vapour, like a comet's luminous haze,
Floats round her argent limbs.

Her clear celestial eyes look deep in mine,
Her brow and breast gleam icy pure;
She whispers -- "Be thy heart my secret shrine,
So shall thy strength endure.

"So shall thy god-like wisdom soar above
All rainbow hues of grief or mirth,
And I will love thee as the stars do love
Even thy distant earth."

Then her eyes lighten, then her voice thrills clear,
But life and death contend in me;
And still she speaks, but now I may not hear;
Shines, but I dare not see.

How shall immortal splendour wed the gaze
Of man, who knows but that which seems,
Whose sight were blinded, if the sun should blaze
With unrefracted beams?

Void were the earth and formless, if arrayed
In purity of perfect white;
All things are clear by colour and by shade,
Glorious with lack of light.

But what is she, whose beauty makes me blind,
Whose voice is like the voice of Fate?
What, save a lustrous mirage of the mind,
My slave, whom I create?

Yet from such dear illusions Wisdom springs,
Though these may fade she shall not die;
In fabled forms of heroes and of kings,
E'en yet we map the sky.

Slow-conquering Truth loves well the joyous noon,
But silent midnight gave her birth;
The cone of darkness that o'ershades the moon
Revealed the orbed earth.

Man knelt to constellated suns supreme,
But as he knelt to golden clods,
Nor, till he ceased to worship, e'er could dream
The greatness of his gods.

He wove for all the planets as they passed
Strange legends, wrought of love and youth,
While o'er the poet-soul was vaguely cast
A shadow of the truth.

Kinsman is he to all the stars that burn
Mirrored in eyes of sleepless awe;
And from his brotherhood with dust, may learn
The heavens' living law.

Nor shall the essences of Truth and Might
Sleep ever in thick darkness furled:
Yon dim horizon bounds my present sight,
Not the eternal world.

When the skies glitter, when the earth is cold,
In some divine and voiceless hour,
The heavens vanish, and mine eyes behold
The elemental Power.

Now has the breath of God my being thrilled;
Within, around, His word I hear:
For all the universe my heart is filled
With love that casts out fear.

In one deep gaze to concentrate the whole
Of that which was, is now, shall be,
To feel it like the thought of mine own soul,
Such power is given to me.

My sight, love-strengthened, Time and Space controls;
No more are Force and Will at strife;
Beyond the sun I pass; around me rolls
Infinite-circled Life.

This realm where he his destined orbit keeps,
This world of planet-ruling spheres,
Borne onward with its Pleiad-centre, sweeps
Through unimagined years.

In suns, that shining for some nobler race
Their twin-born light commingled give,
And through black depths of interstellar space
A boundless life I live.

To me the orbs their fiery past reveal,
With each minutest change designed;
Till, in this harmony of worlds, I feel
The future of mankind,

When each shall aid the universal plan,
When every deed its end shall serve,
When e'en the wildest comet-thought of man
Shall flash in ordered curve,

When mighty souls, that burst all prison bars,
Shall their diviner selves obey,
When man shall hold communion with the stars,
Constant and calm as they,

When every heart shall perfect peace attain,
And every mind celestial scope;
Such were mine own, save for this hungry pain,
This lack of earth-born hope.

I were content, though palsied, sightless, dumb,
If, blasting toil-worn brain and eye,
The heights and depths of human joy to come
Shone clear, before I die.








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