Teeming, maternal orb--I
take you again to myself. I am reminded of that spring preceding
Abraham Lincoln's murder, when I, restlessly haunting the Potomac
banks, around Washington city, watch'd you, off there, aloof, moody as
myself:
As we walk'd up and down in the dark blue so mystic,
As we walk'd in silence the transparent shadowy night,
As I saw you had something to tell, as you bent to me night after
night,
As you droop from the sky low down, as if to my side, (while the
other stars all look'd on,)
As we wander'd together the solemn night.
With departing Venus, large to the last, and shining even to the
edge of the horizon, the vast dome presents at this moment, such
a spectacle! Mercury was visible just after sunset--a rare sight.
Arcturus is now risen, just north of east. In calm glory all the stars
of Orion hold the place of honor, in meridian, to the south,--with the
Dog-star a little to the left. And now, just rising, Spica, late,
low, and slightly veil'd. Castor, Regulus and the rest, all shining
unusually clear, (no Mars or Jupiter or moon till morning.) On the
edge of the river, many lamps twinkling--with two or three huge
chimneys, a couple of miles up, belching forth molten, steady flames,
volcano-like, illuminating all around--and sometimes an electric
or calcium, its Dante-Inferno gleams, in far shafts, terrible,
ghastly-powerful. Of later May nights, crossing, I like to watch the
fishermen's little buoy-lights--so pretty, so dreamy--like corpse
candles--undulating delicate and lonesome on the surface of the
shadowy waters, floating with the current.
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