HKB
make the sun To rise in some one spot--therefore it is That those men seem to speak the truth [who hold A new sun is with each new daybreak born].
The moon she possibly doth shine because Strook by the rays of sun, and day by day May turn unto our gaze her light, the more She doth recede from orb of sun, until, Facing him opposite across the world, She hath with full effulgence gleamed abroad, And, at her rising as she soars above, Hath there observed his setting; thence likewise She needs must hide, as 'twere, her light behind By slow degrees, the nearer now she glides, Along the circle of the Zodiac, From her far place toward fires of yonder sun,-- As those men hold who feign the moon to be Just like a ball and to pursue a course Betwixt the sun and earth. There is, again, Some reason to suppose that moon may roll With light her very own, and thus display The varied shapes of her resplendence there. For near her is, percase, another body, Invisible, because devoid of light, Borne on and gliding all along with her, Which in three modes may block and blot her disk. Again, she may revolve upon herself, Like to a ball's sphere--if perchance that be-- One half of her dyed o'er with glowing light, And by the revolution of that sphere She may beget for us her varying shapes, Until she turns that fiery part of her Full to the sight and open eyes of men; Thence by slow stages round and back she whirls, Withdrawing thus the luminiferous part Of her sphered mass and ball, as, verily, The Babylonian doctrine of Chaldees, Refuting the art of Greek astrologers, Labours, in opposition, to prove sure-- As if, forsooth, the thing for which each fights, Might not alike be true,--or aught there were Wherefore thou mightest risk embracing one More than the other notion. Then, again, Why a new moon might not forevermore Created be with fixed successions there Of shapes and with configurations fixed, And why each day that bright created moon Might not miscarry and another be, In its stead and place, engendered anew, 'Tis hard to show by reason, or by words To prove absurd--since, lo, so many things Can be create with fixed successions: Spring-time and Venus come, and Venus' boy, The winged harbinger, steps on before, And hard on Zephyr's foot-prints Mother Flora, Sprinkling the ways before them, filleth all With colours and with odours excellent; Whereafter follows arid Heat, and he Companioned is by Ceres, dusty one, And by the Etesian Breezes of the north; Then cometh Autumn on, and with him steps Lord Bacchus, and then other Seasons too And other Winds do follow--the high roar Of great Volturnus, and the Southwind strong With thunder-bolts. At last earth's Shortest-Day Bears on to men the snows and brings again The numbing cold. And Winter follows her, His teeth with chills a-chatter. Therefore, 'tis The less a marvel, if at fixed time A moon is thus begotten and again At fixed time destroyed, since things so many Can come to being thus at fixed time. Likewise, the sun's eclipses and the moon's Far occultations rightly thou mayst deem