TO THE MOON
RYDAL
TO THE MOON
QUEEN of the stars!–so gentle, so benign, That ancient Fable did to thee assign, When darkness creeping o’er thy silver brow Warned thee these upper regions to forego, Alternate empire in the shades below– A Bard, who, lately near the wide-spread sea Traversed by gleaming ships, looked up to thee With grateful thoughts, doth now thy rising hail From the close confines of a shadowy vale. Glory of night, conspicuous yet serene, 10 Nor less attractive when by glimpses seen Through cloudy umbrage, well might that fair face, And all those attributes of modest grace, In days when Fancy wrought unchecked by fear, Down to the green earth fetch thee from thy sphere, To sit in leafy woods by fountains clear! O still beloved (for thine, meek Power, are charms That fascinate the very Babe in arms, While he, uplifted towards thee, laughs outright, Spreading his little palms in his glad Mother’s sight) 20 O still beloved, once worshipped! Time, that frowns In his destructive flight on earthly crowns, Spares thy mild splendour; still those far-shot beams Tremble on dancing waves and rippling streams With stainless touch, as chaste as when thy praise Was sung by Virgin-choirs in festal lays; And through dark trials still dost thou explore Thy way for increase punctual as of yore, When teeming Matrons–yielding to rude faith In mysteries of birth and life and death 30 And painful struggle and deliverance–prayed Of thee to visit them with lenient aid. What though the rites be swept away, the fanes Extinct that echoed to the votive strains; Yet thy mild aspect does not, cannot, cease Love to promote and purity and peace; And Fancy, unreproved, even yet may trace Faint types of suffering in thy beamless face. Then silent Monitress! let us–not blind To worlds unthought of till the searching mind 40 Of Science laid them open to mankind– Told, also, how the voiceless heavens declare God’s glory; and acknowledging thy share In that blest charge; let us–without offence To aught of highest, holiest, influence– Receive whatever good ’tis given thee to dispense. May sage and simple, catching with one eye The moral intimations of the sky, Learn from thy course, where’er their own be taken, “To look on tempests, and be never shaken;” 50 To keep with faithful step the appointed way Eclipsing or eclipsed, by night or day, And from example of thy monthly range Gently to brook decline and fatal change; Meek, patient, stedfast, and with loftier scope, Than thy revival yields, for gladsome hope! 1835.