LUNAR SCIENCE.

ANCIENT AND MODERN.

BY THE

REV. TIMOTHY HARLEY, F.R.A.S.,
AUTHOR OF "MOON LORE," ETC.

"Heaven's ebon vault,

Studded with stars unutterably bright,

Through which the moon's unclouded grandeur rolls,

Seems like a canopy which love has spread

To curtain her sleeping world."

Shelley's "Queen Mab," iv.

"The man who has seen the rising moon break out of the clouds at midnight has
been present like an archangel at the creation of light and of the world."
Emerson's "Essay on History."

Butler & Tanner,

The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London.

NIGHT IN THE DESERT.

"How beautiful is night!

A dewy freshness fills the silent air;
No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain,
Breaks the serene of heaven :

In full-orbed glory yonder moon Divine
Rolls through the dark blue depths:
Beneath her steady ray

The desert circle spreads,

Like the round ocean, girdled with the sky.

How beautiful is night!"

Southey's "Thalaba."

THE MIDNIGHT OCEAN.

"The mighty moon she sits above,
Encircled with a zone of love,

A zone of dim and tender light

That makes her wakeful eye more bright:

She seems to shine with a sunny ray,

And the night looks like a mellow'd day!

The gracious mistress of the main

Hath now an undisturbèd reign,

And from her silent throne looks down,

As upon children of her own,

On the waves that lend their gentle breast

In gladness for her couch of rest!"

Wilson's "Isle of Palms."