The moon well up in the heavens,
and past her half, is shining brightly--the air and sky of that
cynical-clear, Minerva-like quality, virgin cool--not the weight
of sentiment or mystery, or passion's ecstasy indefinable--not the
religious sense, the varied All, distill'd and sublimated into one, of
the night just described. Every star now clear-cut, showing for
just what it is, there in the colorless ether. The character of the
heralded morning, ineffably sweet and fresh and limpid, but for
the esthetic sense alone, and for purity without sentiment. I have
itemized the night--but dare I attempt the cloudless dawn? (What
subtle tie is this between one's soul and the break of day? Alike, and
yet no two nights or morning shows ever exactly alike.) Preceded by an
immense star, almost unearthly in its effusion of white splendor, with
two or three long unequal spoke-rays of diamond radiance, shedding
down through the fresh morning air below--an hour of this, and then
the sunrise.
THE EAST.--What a subject for a poem! Indeed, where else a more
pregnant, more splendid one? Where one more idealistic-real, more
subtle, more sensuous-delicate? The East, answering all lands, all
ages, peoples; touching all senses, here, immediate, now--and yet so
indescribably far off--such retrospect! The East--long-stretching--so
losing itself--the orient, the gardens of Asia, the womb of history
and song--forth-issuing all those strange, dim cavalcades--Florid with
blood, pensive, rapt with musings, hot with passion.
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