Request

[appyella.livejournal.com]

I've searched the tags, and come up empty handed in my quest to find poems about the night sky (stars, constellations, planets, etc.). Any and all would be greatly appreciated and treasured, especially if they are, in anyway, about or relating to love. Thank you kindly in advance.

Also, so I needn't feel cheap requesting and not posting, I'll share one of my favorites. Though, I'd be surprised if it had not been posted before.

From up here in the crow's nest
I see a small crowd gather.
Who do you gather, my townsmen?
There is no news here.
I am not a trapeze artist.
I am busy with my dying.
Three heads lolling,
bobbing like bladders.
No news,
The soldiers down below
laughing as soldiers have done for centuries.
No news,
We are the same men,
you and I,
the same sort of nostrils,
the same sort of feet.
My bones are oiled with blood
and so are yours.
My heart pumps like a jack rabbit in a trap
and so does yours.
I want to kiss God on His nose and watch Him sneeze
and so do you.
Not out of disrespect.
Out if pique.
Out of a man-to-man thing.
I want heaven to descend and sit on My dinner plate
and so do you.
I want God to put His steaming arms around Me
and so do you.
Because we need,
Because we are sore creatures.
My townsmen,
go home now.
I will do nothing extraordinary.
I will not divide in two.
I will not pick out My white eyes.
Go now,
this is a personal matter,
a private affair and God knows
none of your business.

-From The Book of Folly

Comments

[tears-of-nienna.livejournal.com]

"The Old Astronomer to his Pupil" is one of my very favorite poems. I was going to just link to the entry, but it's always worth reading, so:

The Old Astronomer to His Pupil
Sarah Williams

Reach me down my Tyco Brahe, I would know him when we meet,
When I share my later science, sitting humbly at his feet;
He may know the law of all things, yet be ignorant of how
We are working to completion, working on from then to now.

Pray remember that I leave you all my theory complete,
Lacking only certain data for your adding, as is meet,
And remember men will scorn it, ‘tis original and true,
And the obloquy of newness may fall bitterly on you.

But, my pupil, as my pupil you have learned the worth of scorn,
You have laughed with me at pity, we have joyed to be forlorn,
What for us are all distractions of men’s fellowship and smiles;
What for us the Goddess Pleasure with her meretricious smiles!

You may tell that German College that their honor comes too late,
But they must not waste repentance on the grizzly savant’s fate.
Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;
I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.

[appyella.livejournal.com]

wow. "I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night."
that is great, thank you!

Here you go

[lilacsinmarch.livejournal.com]

The more loving one - W.H. Auden

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total darkness sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.

Re: Here you go

[appyella.livejournal.com]

Perfect, thank you.

[distractedfish.livejournal.com]

He wishes for the cloths of heaven

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams.

- William Butler Yeats

[appyella.livejournal.com]

i may have read this before, something about it seems familiar.
thank you, nonetheless.

[bemkah.livejournal.com]

Hopefully there's one in here that tickles your fancy.

Stars - a poem by Emily Bronte

Ah! why, because the dazzling sun
Restored our earth to joy
Have you departed, every one,
And left a desert sky?

All through the night, your glorious eyes
Were gazing down in mine,
And with a full heart's thankful sighs
I blessed that watch divine!

I was at peace, and drank your beams
As they were life to me
And revelled in my changeful dreams
Like petrel on the sea.

Thought followed thought star followed star
Through boundless regions on,
While one sweet influence, near and far,
Thrilled through and proved us one.

Why did the morning dawn to break
So great, so pure a spell,
And scorch with fire the tranquil cheek
Where your cool radiance fell?

Blood-red he rose, and arrow-straight
His fierce beams struck my brow:
The soul of Nature sprang elate,
But mine sank sad and low!

My lids closed down, yet through their veil
I saw him blazing still;
And steep in gold the misty dale
And flash upon the hill.

I turned me to the pillow then
To call back Night, and see
Your worlds of solemn light, again
Throb with my heart and me!

It would not do the pillow glowed
And glowed both roof and floor,
And birds sang loudly in the wood,
And fresh winds shook the door.

The curtains waved, the wakened flies
Were murmuring round my room,
Imprisoned there, till I should rise
And give them leave to roam.

O Stars and Dreams and Gentle Night;
O Night and Stars return!
And hide me from the hostile light
That does not warm, but burn

That drains the blood of suffering men;
Drinks tears, instead of dew:
Let me sleep through his blinding reign,
And only wake with you!

Falling Stars - Rainer Maria Rilke

Do you remember still the falling stars
that like swift horses through the heavens raced
and suddenly leaped across the hurdles
of our wishes--do you recall? And we
did make so many! For there were countless numbers
of stars: each time we looked above we were
astounded by the swiftness of their daring play,
while in our hearts we felt safe and secure
watching these brilliant bodies disintegrate,
knowing somehow we had survived their fall.


Thomas Cole: Twilight
How lovely are the portals of
the night,
When stars come out to
watch the daylight die.

Hymn to the North Star - William Cullen Bryant

THE sad and solemn night
Has yet her multitude of cheerful fires;
The glorious host of light
Walk the dark hemisphere till she retires;
All through her silent watches, gliding slow,
Her constellations come, and climb the heavens, and go.
Day, too, hath many a star
To grace his gorgeous reign, as bright as they:
Through the blue fields afar,
Unseen, they follow in his flaming way:
Many a bright lingerer, as the eve grows dim,
Tells what a radiant troop arose and set with him.

And thou dost see them rise,
Star of the Pole! and thou dost see them set.
Alone, in thy cold skies,
Thou keep'st thy old unmoving station yet,
Nor join'st the dances of that glittering train,
Nor dipp'st thy virgin orb in the blue western main.

There, at morn's rosy birth,
Thou lookest meekly through the kindling air,
And eve, that round the earth
Chases the day, beholds thee watching there;
There noontide finds thee, and the hour that calls
The shapes of polar flame to scale heaven's azure walls.

Alike, beneath thine eye,
The deeds of darkness and of light are done;
High towards the star-lit sky
Towns blaze--the smoke of battle blots the sun--
The night-storm on a thousand hills is loud--
And the strong wind of day doth mingle sea and cloud.

On thy unaltering blaze
The half-wrecked mariner, his compass lost,
Fixes his steady gaze,
And steers, undoubting, to the friendly coast;
And they who stray in perilous wastes, by night,
Are glad when thou dost shine to guide their footsteps right.

And, therefore, bards of old,
Sages, and hermits of the solemn wood,
Did in thy beams behold
A beauteous type of that unchanging good,
That bright eternal beacon, by whose ray
The voyager of time should shape his heedful way.

Walt Whitman

[salami-salome.livejournal.com]

When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

also, Stanley Kunitz

[salami-salome.livejournal.com]

Halley's Comet


Miss Murphy in first grade
wrote its name in chalk
across the board and told us
it was roaring down the stormtracks
of the Milky Way at frightful speed
and if it wandered off its course
and smashed into the earth
there'd be no school tomorrow.
A red-bearded preacher from the hills
with a wild look in his eyes
stood in the public square
at the playground's edge
proclaiming he was sent by God
to save every one of us,
even the little children.
"Repent, ye sinners!" he shouted,
waving his hand-lettered sign.
At supper I felt sad to think
that it was probably
the last meal I'd share
with my mother and my sisters;
but I felt excited too
and scarcely touched my plate.
So mother scolded me
and sent me early to my room.
The whole family's asleep
except for me. They never heard me steal
into the stairwell hall and climb
the ladder to the fresh night air.

Look for me, Father, on the roof
of the red brick building
at the foot of Green Street --
that's where we live, you know, on the top floor.
I'm the boy in the white flannel gown
sprawled on this coarse gravel bed
searching the starry sky,
waiting for the world to end.

[the-grynne.livejournal.com]

LISTEN!
by Valdimir Mayakovsky

Listen,
if stars are lit
it means - there is someone who needs it.
It means - someone wants them to be,
that someone deems those specks of spit
magnificent.

And overwrought,
in the swirls of afternoon dust,
he bursts in on God,
afraid he might be already late.
In tears,
he kisses God's sinewy hand
and begs him to guarantee
that there will definitely be a star.
He swears
he won't be able to stand
that starless ordeal.

Later,
He wanders around, worried,
but outwardly calm.

And to everyone else, he says:
'Now,
it's all right.
You are no longer afraid,
are you?'

Listen,
if stars are lit,
it means - there is someone who needs it.
It means it is essential
that every evening
at least one star should ascend
over the crest of the building

[the-grynne.livejournal.com]

'I AM LIKE A SLIP OF COMET...'
by Gerard Manley Hopkins

- I am like a slip of comet,
Scarce worth discovery, in some corner seen
Bridging the slender difference of two stars,
Come out of space, or suddenly engender'd
By heady elements, for no man knows;
But when she sights the sun she grows and sizes
And spins her skirts out, while her central star
Shakes its cocooning mists; and so she comes
To fields of light; millions of travelling rays
Pierce her; she hangs upon the flame-cased sun,
And sucks the light as full as Gideons's fleece:
But then her tether calls her; she falls off,
And as she dwindles shreds her smock of gold
Between the sistering planets, till she comes
To single Saturn, last and solitary;
And then she goes out into the cavernous dark.
So I go out: my little sweet is done:
I have drawn heat from this contagious sun:
To not ungentle death now forth I run.

[huanhua.livejournal.com]

The Silence of the Stars

When Laurens van der Post one night
        In the Kalihari Desert told the Bushmen
                He couldn't hear the stars
Singing, they didn't believe him.  They looked at him.
        Half-smiling.  They examined his face
                To see whether he was joking
Or deceiving them.  Then two of those small men
        Who plant nothing, who have almost
                Nothing to hunt, who live
On almost nothing and with no one
        But themselves, led him away
                From the crackling thorn-scrub fire
And stood with him under the night sky
        And listened.  One of them whispered,
                Do you not hear them now?
And van der Post listened, not wanting
        To disbelieve, but had to answer,
                No.  They walked him slowly
Like a sick man to the small dim
        Circle of firelight and told him
                They were terribly sorry,
And he felt even sorrier
        For himself and blamed his ancestors
                For their strange loss of hearing,
Which was his loss now.  On some clear nights
        When nearby houses have turned off their visions,
                When the traffic dwindles, when through streets
Are between sirens and the jets overhead
        Are between crossings, when the wind
                Is hanging fire in the fir trees,
And the long-eared owl in the neighboring grove
        Between calls is regarding his own darkness,
                I look at the stars again as I first did
To school myself in the names of constellations
        And remember my first sense of their terrible distance,
                I can still hear what I thought
At the edge of silence were the inside jokes
        Of my heartbeat, my arterial traffic,
                The C above high C of my inner ear, myself
Tunelessly humming, but now I know what they are:
        My fair share of the music of the spheres
                And clusters of ripening stars,
Of the songs from the throats of the old gods
        Still tending even tone-deaf creatures
                Through their exiles in the desert.

--David Wagoner

[moireach.livejournal.com]

Hey, can you edit this post to include the poet's name, please? Thanks.

[appyella.livejournal.com]

i actually did include the poet's name in the lj-cut. i thought that was good enough?

[moireach.livejournal.com]

That means that when you view the post itself, the name isn't visible, so no one will know who the poem is by. See: http://community.livejournal.com/greatpoets/2497201.html

[bluetreepoet.livejournal.com]

The Astronomer to His Telescope

Weigh the stars down. Tie them with threads
and tow them gently into the yard. Lash them
with strings. Tug them, as you would a kite
or a ship that has drifted too far into the bay.

Do you think them nonchalant? They love each word of praise.
They are already half in the water the rain has left.
Call them into their reflections. They won’t singe us
or pervert your glass. They are too vain for that.

Like trees, they drizzle from gaudy leaves.
Like dryads, they strum the sky away.
Like sweet lounge singers, they turn our heads
all night. Applaud them down, before it’s too late.

They are always thinking about the perfect exit––
redshift in the curve of your glass buffed eye.

––Kevin Prufer


Field Guide to the Night Sky

No one witnesses
the history of light.
The sky litters itself
with dust and I’m unsettled
by the steadfast burn
of thinking.
The night sky reaches
inside me,
I am sleepless
waiting for each star
to cross
into its corner, flower
then dim.
I do not believe
in paradise:
to flower, then dim.

––Jennifer Chang

[mspixieears.livejournal.com]

Who is this actually by? The poet's name doesn't appear anywhere in the actual post?