Excerpt from “A Summer Evening’s Meditation” by Anna Laetitia Barbauld

photo credit: “Orion on the rise!”: Bob King

Lines 14 – 60
(spaces mine)

The shadows spread apace; while meeken’d Eve
Her cheek yet warm with blushes, slow retires
Thro’ the Hesperian gardens of the west,
And shuts the gates of day. ‘Tis now the hour
When Contemplation, from her sunless haunts,
The cool damp grotto, or the lonely depth
Of unpierc’d woods, where wrapt in solid shade
She mused away the gaudy hours of noon,
And fed on thoughts unripen’d by the sun,
Moves forward; and with radiant finger points
To yon blue concave swell’d by breath divine,
Where, one by one, the living eyes of heaven
Awake, quick kindling o’er the face of ether
One boundless blaze; ten thousand trembling fires,
And dancing lustres, where th’ unsteady eye,
Restless, and dazzled wanders unconfin’d
O’er all this field of glories: spacious field;
And worthy of the Master: he, whose hand
With hieroglyphics elder than the Nile,
Inscribed the mystic tablet; hung on high
To public gaze, and said, adore, O man!
The finger of thy GOD. From what pure wells
Of milky light, what soft o’erflowing urn,
Are all these lamps so fill’d? these friendly lamps,
For ever streaming o’er the azure deep
To point our path, and light us to our home.

How soft they slide along their lucid spheres!

And silent as the foot of time, fulfil
Their destin’d courses: Nature’s self is hush’d,
And, but a scatter’d leaf, which rustles thro’
The thick-wove foliage, not a sound is heard
To break the midnight air; tho’ the rais’d ear,
Intensely listening, drinks in every breath.

How deep the silence yet how loud the praise!

But are they silent all? or is there not
A tongue in every star that talks with man,
And wooes him to be wise; nor wooes in vain:
This dead of midnight is the noon of thought,
And wisdom mounts her zenith with the stars.

At this still hour the self-collected soul
Turns inward, and beholds a stranger there
Of high descent, and more than mortal rank;
An embryo GOD; a spark of fire divine,
Which must burn on for ages, when the sun,
(Fair transitory creature of a day!)
Has clos’d his golden eye, and wrap’d in shades
Forgets his wonted journey thro’ the east.

-copied from: www.digital.library.upenn.edu.

Interesting exploration of “A Summer Evening’s Meditation” : Anetta Newcamp, Examining Anna Laetitia Barbauld’s poem, “A Summer Evening’s Meditation”

Great short video on “Stars: The Art and Science“