OUR COUNTRY LIFE 



glass and with a reeling brain, one instinctively puts 

 forth a hand to steady the toppling earth! Yet it does 

 not follow that because astronomy is the most romantic 

 of the sciences, its devotees are sentimental. 



"Yes," I overheard a noted astronomer say to a 

 startled miss who with clasped hands and parted lips, 

 was adoring the full, round moon: 'Yes, I would 

 really blot out the moon if I could. It is only in the 

 way in our business." 



One night the white-flecked sky was apparently on 

 this side of the moon. How mysterious its depths! 

 How lowering it curved above me! It was as seamed 

 and crackled as the surface of the moon itself and looked 

 as changeless. I wonder whether the Chinese poet Li 

 Po who wrote in the eighth century was a traveler; I 

 know he was a nature lover, and I believe he slept 

 out of doors, for listen to one of his lays; 



Athwart the night 

 I watch the moonbeams cast a trail 



So bright, so cold, so frail 



That for a space it gleams 

 Like hoarfrost on the margin of my dreams. 



1 80 



