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THE POETRY OF THE MOON.

To write a chapter on the moon, appears, at first sight, a task no less presumptuous in itself, than inevitably fruitless in its consequencesfruitless as regards that kind of interest which on behalf of the queen of night has been called forth and sanctified by the highest powers of genius, as well as abused and profaned by the lowest. To apostrophise the moon, even in the most ecstatic lays, would, in the present day, be little less absurd than to attempt

"To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume o'er the violet,
To smoothe the ice, or add another hue
Unto the rainbow, or with lanthorn light

To seek the beauteous eye of Heaven to garnish."

Yet in order to prove that the moon is of all natural and sensible objects, pre-eminently poe

tical, no other facts need be adduced than these; that all the effusions of disordered fancy which have been offered at her shrine, since first the world began, have not deprived the queen of night of one iota of her regal dignity; not all the abortive efforts of deceptive art, (and not a few have presented a mockery of her inimitable beauty,) have, in the slightest degree impaired the charm of her loveliness; not all the allusions of sickly sentiment, or vulgar affectation, have sullied her purity; nor have all the scenes of degradation, fraud, or cruelty, which her mysterious light has illuminated, been able, even in these clear-sighted and practical times, to render less solemn and imposing, that soulpervading influence, with which the moon is still capable of inspiring those who have not entirely subdued or sacrificed the tender, generous, or sublime emotions of their nature.

In power, and majesty, and glory, the sun unquestionably claims our regard before all other objects of creation. But the sun is less poetical than the moon, because his attributes are less exclusively connected with our mental perceptions. By combining the idea of heat with that of light, our associations become

more sensitive and corporeal, and consequently less refined. The light of the sun is also too clear, and too generally pervading in its nature, to be so poetical as that of the moon. It leaves too little for the imagination. All is revealed to the eye; and myriads of different objects being thus made distinctly visible, the attention wants that focus of concentration which gives intensity and vividness to all our impressions.

"But the stars," some may ask, "are they not sufficiently distant and magnificent for sublimity-mild enough for purity-beautiful enough for love?" Yes; but they are too distant-too pure-too cold for human love. They come not near our troubled world, they smile not upon us like the moon. We feel that they are beautiful. We behold and admire. No wonder that the early dwellers upon earth should have been tempted to behold and worship. But one thing is wanting, that charm, whether real or ideal, which connects, or seems to connect, our mental sufferings, wants, and wishes, with some high and unattainable source of intelligence-the charm of sympathy. Thousands of purified and elevated minds have expatiated upon the stars as the most sublime of

all created objects, and so unquestionably they are; but sublimity is not all that constitutes the essence of poetic feeling. The spirit of poetry dwells not always in the high and distant heavens, but loves to vary its existence by the enjoyment of tender and home-felt delights. Thus we are not satisfied, even in our highest intellectual pursuits, unless we find something to appropriate, and call our own; and thus while we admire the stars as splendid portions of the magnificence of the heavens, we both admire and love the moon, because, still retaining her heavenly character, she approaches nearer to our earth. We cannot look upon the stars without being struck with a sense of their distance, their unattainable height, the immeasurable extent of space that lies between the celestial fields which they traverse with a perpetual harmony of motion, and the low world of petty cares where we lie grovelling. But the moon-the placid moon, is just high enough for sublimity, just near

* Every one disposed to doubt this truth, may find full conviction by reading in Montgomery's Lectures on Poetry, a few pages devoted to this subject; perhaps the most poetical effusion that ever flowed from an eloquent pen, inspired by a refined imagination, a highly gifted mind, and a devout spirit.

enough for love. So benign, and bland, and softly beautiful is her ever-beaming countenance, that when personifying, as we always do, the moon, she seems to us rather as puri fied, than as having been always pure. We feel as if some fellowship with human frailty and suffering had brought her near us, and almost wonder whether her seasons of mysterious darkness are accompanied with that character of high and unimpeachable dignity which attends her seasons of light. Her very beams, when they steal in upon our meditations, seem fraught with tenderness, with charity, and love; so that we naturally associate them in our own minds, not so much with supernatural perfection, as with that which has been refined and sublimated by a moral process. We call to remembrance the darkest imputation ever cast upon the moon, in those dark times when to be a goddess was by no means to be free from every moral stain; and then, in fanciful return for all her sweet, and cheering, and familiar light, we sometimes offer a sigh of pity to the vestal Dian, that she should have paid so dearly for having loved but once, and that with so pure a flame, that it disturbed not the dreams of a slumbering shepherd boy.

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