The rarest, finest sample of
long-drawn-out clear-obscure, from sundown to 9 o'clock. I went down
to the Delaware, and cross'd and cross'd. Venus like blazing silver
well up in the west. The large pale thin crescent of the new moon,
half an hour high, sinking languidly under a bar-sinister of cloud,
and then emerging. Arcturus right overhead. A faint fragrant sea-odor
wafted up from the south. The gloaming, the temper'd coolness, with
every feature of the scene, indescribably soothing and tonic--one
of those hours that give hints to the soul, impossible to put in a
statement. (Ah, where would be any food for spirituality without night
and the stars?) The vacant spaciousness of the air, and the veil'd
blue of the heavens, seem'd miracles enough.
As the night advanc'd it changed its spirit and garments to ampler
stateliness. I was almost conscious of a definite presence, Nature
silently near. The great constellation of the Water-Serpent stretch'd
its coils over more than half the heavens. The Swan with outspread
wings was flying down the Milky Way. The northern Crown, the Eagle,
Lyra, all up there in their places. From the whole dome shot down
points of light, rapport with me, through the clear blue-black. All
the usual sense of motion, all animal life, seem'd discarded, seem'd a
fiction; a curious power, like the placid rest of Egyptian gods, took
possession, none the less potent for being impalpable. Earlier I had
seen many bats, balancing in the luminous twilight, darting their
black forms hither and yon over the river; but now they altogether
disappear'd.
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