POETRY.
THE ASTRONOMER'S MOON.—A DEAD WORLD.
OH, Moon! delight of lovers ! canst thou be The dreary desert science says of thee ?- A life of fire gone out, a world whose breath Hath giv'n its quick'ning atmosphere to death ?
Oh, Moon ! delight of lovers ! canst thou be No more the light of poet's phantasy ? An agonized heap of twisted rock,— A death-carv'd, cinder'd, monumental block !
No more our symbol of inconstancy,— Waxing and waning—spiritually free,— Thy heights, cloud-wido w'd, feel no fertile rains, And voiceless caverns seam corroded plains.
Art thou, our Moon, a gleaming, cold, dead face, A spectre warning coustellated space? Then lunar frenzy may be sympathy, Of spirits troubled in their agony.
By pity moved, obedient seas swell high To moist thy dry lips, while the sad winds sigh, And in thy heatless heart Earth feels her doom, Her greater light the measure of her tomb.
Oh, fair ethereal ruler of our night !
Companion friendly, cheerful satellite, Can it be so, that thou, our comfort giving, Art bound, a girdling corpse, unto the living ?
Over life's feast a sad memento skull Which mutely speaks in symbol wonderful,
Vanitas vanitatun ti all must die,—
Planets, and suns, and moons, and you and I.
J. F. CORKRAN.
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