Moonrise

“ The other way of coming before nature is the tersely realistic, that regards the changing glories of the sunset or moonrise with a callous, critical, investigating glance, indulging in no idle visions or fancy images, but dividing the glories into degrees of colour and gradation. ”

“ Trees, fells, grass were steeped in a wan, gold light, a mingling of sunset and moonrise. The sky was clear; the gradations of colour on the hills ethereally distinct. From a clump of trees came a soft hooting of owls; and close behind them a tall hedge of roses red and white made a bower for Lydia's light form, and filled the night with perfume.
"What do great men matter?" said Tatham incoherently as they paused; "what does anything matter—but—Lydia!" ”

“ So said the vision; and carrying the passion of it deep in his heart the Rector went his way, down the long stony hill, past the solitary farm amid the trees at the foot of it, across the grassy common beyond, with its sentinel clumps of beeches, past an ethereal string of tiny lakes just touched by the moonrise, beside some of the first cottages of Murewell, up the hill, with pulse beating and step quickening, and round into the stretch of road leading to his own gate. ”

“ Through the thick alders you will break your way:
Then your hand in mine, and our path is on the waters,—
For us the long shadows and the end of day.
Whither shall we go? See, over to the westward,
An hour of precious gold standeth still for you and me;
Still gleams the grain, all yellow on the uplands;
West is it, or East, O Love that you would be?
West now, or East? For, underneath the moonrise,
Also it is fair; and where the reeds are tall,
And the only little noise is the sound of quiet waters,
Heavy, like the rain, we shall hear the duck-oats fall. ”

“ Then would come the moonlight to make the world a fairyland of the softest of blue; a mystical land, covered by a velvet sky, studded with sky-diamonds, which seemed very close to the earth, and a moon, like a great ball, stereopticon in its contour and fairly transparent in its soft brilliancy. ”

“ The sun had set, the twilight was over, the moon rose in splendour from amidst a thick copse of mingled beech and oak; the beams fell full on the face of the muser, and the face seemed yet paler and the exhaustion of premature decay yet more evident, by that still and melancholy light: all ruins gain dignity by the moon. ”

“ Idles the night wind through the dreaming firs,
That waking murmur low,
As some lost melody returning stirs
The love of long ago;
And through the far, cool distance, zephyr fanned.
The moon is sinking into shadow-land. ”

“ Moon shining strangely on the white palings of the fence, I am shining too but my light is shut inside of me and can't get out.
: :
Old house with black windows— blind house begging moonlight to put out the shadows— why do you want so much light? You creak when the wind steps on you— you cough up dust and your beams ache— you know you will soon fall, the moon just pities you! Don't waste yourself moon— come on my bed and play with me. Wrap me up in blue light, you who are cool. I am too hot, I am all alive and the shadows are outside of me. ”

“ I know what it is to be alone on high peaks with the moon, and I have felt the spell that holds the lonely wanderer when, on a still night, he feels the wistful, tender touch of the summer air, while the leaves whisper and listen in the moonlight, and the moon-toned etchings of the pines fall upon the magic forest floor. ”

“ Even the waning moon, whose pale sickle rose thinner and thinner every night over the rim of the eastern horizon, may have excited in his mind a fear lest, when it had wholly vanished, there should be moons no more. ”

“ The moon shines far brighter than at other times, as if a lamp were burning at its full height in the sleeping-room instead of a mere night-light. People strolling along, absorbed in thought and feeling the flagstones under their feet still warm--for they have been drinking in the fierce glow of the sun the livelong summer day--catch themselves in the act of crossing over out of the moonlight to the shady side, just as one does in the hot noontide. ”

“ Presently the moon rose, shining over the sea in a broad spreading pathway of silver, that looked like a gleaming fairy track across the water to the far horizon, where a distant lighthouse glinted at intervals like a fiery eye. ”

“ I climbed to the top of the ridge: far away shone the moon, sinking to a low horizon. The air was pure and strong. I descended a little way, found it warmer, and sat down to wait the dawn.
The moon went below, and the world again was dark. ”

“ The moonbeams trail their shrouds;
Their tattered cerements
Cling to the gauzy clouds,
In ribbons frayed and thin—
And startled by the light
Silence shrinks deeper in
The depths of night.
Useless lie spades and rakes;
Rust's on the garden-tools.
Yet, where the moonlight makes
Nebulous silver pools
A ghostly shape is cast—
Something unseen has stirred.... ”

“ The moonlight is drawing him—dizzy the height—
Life’s burden has passed from him into the night
“Stop lover! One step and death stands in your way!”
Where he stood, falls undimmed the moonlight’s ray. ”

“ On a dark night the moon, when at last she rises, reveals to us, just at our feet, a world of objects, of the presence of which we were not aware before. We see the river sparkling in the moonbeams close beside us, and the tall shadows sleeping quietly on the grass, and the sharp relief of the architectural cornices, and the strong outline of the lights and shades, so well defined that we can scarcely believe that a moment ago, and we did not see them. ”

“ It was one of those clear moonlight nights that make every peak and pinnacle on the mountain ranges stand out as clear and distinct against the cold sky as they do in the daytime; a moon that shames the headlight, and shows the twin threads of steel running away off yonder and meeting and going on together where the darkness begins. ”

“ It was one of those nights which, on this continent, are peculiarly beautiful; when the moon drowns, in her own effulgence, all the stars immediately round herself, but leaves the rest of the sky full of bright luminaries, which, large and full, seem to vie the one with the other in aiding her to make up for the absence of the sun. ”

“ The effect of the moonlight, as it falls on the edges of the adjoining mountains, is very impressive,—-its brightness in this country being intense: a hard, lustrous outline encircles the moon; and the spots and streaks upon it which resemble lakes and mountains, actually pain the eyes from the luminous glare of light which surrounds them. ”

“ The moon, almost departed, only cast over the landscape an uncertain and timorous gleam, which, in lieu of dissipating the gloom, only rendered the darkness visible, through the striking contrasts between the obscurity and the pale and fugitive rays of the declining planet. ”

“ The moonlight made a fairy day, that hid all the blemishes, the filth, the ruinous rubbish-heaps, and so beautified the things that were shapely that one might have been walking through a city of the silver sky. ”

“ The moon is in our minds associated with peace, silence, rest; the silver radiance causes no pain to the eyes, and like charity, while revealing objects, it adds to their beauty, and subdues defects. Much that by the light of day seems harsh and ugly appears picturesque and fascinating in the delicate splendor of the moonlight. ”

“ In short, the moon traversing, or appearing to traverse, the small clouds which lie in her way, now obscured by them, now easily dissipating and shining through them, makes the drama of the moonlight night to all watchers and night-travellers. ”

“ Old with moonlight lay the night,
And on the desert lay
Ancient and unending light
That assured not of the day;
For the half-moon stood to stay
Fixed at the heavens" height
And eternal ere the day. ”

“ The moon was at the full, and she hung, still tending upwards, high in the transparent vault where all the host of heaven were burning and blinking like tapers in a fitful wind, so brilliant was their scintillating lustre seen through that clear dry atmosphere where the moonlight shows the red and the green of brick wall and painted verandah, colours which are but modulated greys where insular moistness thickens and dims the air. ”

“ The muttering of the thunder could be heard more distinctly as it grew slowly in volume and then died reluctantly and threateningly away among the surrounding hills. The moon looked down from among the scurrying clouds, her pale and baleful gleams lighting the solitary scene with ghostly light. ”

“ So in looking at these spectacles in the moon we cannot but be interested by the reflection that they are reminders and relics of a wonderful history, whatever its precise character may have been. The moon seems to me to stand for the most affecting of all tragedies—the passing of a world. When I survey its extraordinary landscapes, it is like looking upon a long-abandoned stage, whose actors are in their graves, whose scenery is moldering under a gaping roof, whose machinery is broken, whose very traditions are forgotten, but which yet retains a semblance of its former brilliance. ”

“ It is a token of fine weather to see the old moon in the arms of the new; and so is the turning up of the horns of the new moon, as they retain the water which would fall to the earth if the horns were turned down. ”

“ As moonlight that softens into beauty every angle on which it falls, seemed his presence,—as moonlight vanishes, and things assume their common aspect of the rugged and the mean, he receded from her eyes, and the outward scene was commonplace once more. ”

“ They take it patiently, and even cheerfully; for they see in it a mixture of dark and bright. In their own beautiful and poetical saying: "The moon shines bright amid the firs." May it not only shine through the gloom of deep forests, but rise higher and higher, till it casts a flood of light over the whole Eastern sky! ”

“ On the fine moonlight nights, too, there might often be seen a group sitting there, and enjoying what is to them a solemn hour, for they entertain the poetic belief that "the moon was made to give light to the dead." ”

“ Believing that the moon in an eclipse was sickening or dying, through the influence of enchanters, the trembling spectators had recourse to the ringing of bells, the sounding of trumpets, the beating of brazen vessels, and to loud and horrid exclamations, in order to break the enchantment, and to drown the muttering of witches, that the moon might not hear them. ”

“ We have found the moon destitute of both air and water; it is evident that it is also destitute of all vegetation; in fact of all life. As there is darkness above, so there is silence below. The moon is a desert land where no foliage rustles, where no flowers bloom, where no bird builds or sings. No feet climb the lofty mountains, or explore the gaping craters of moon-land. No voice causes an echo in the vast yawning caves that penetrate moon-mountains. ”

“ Then, there is poetry in reposing under the direct gaze of the moon and stars, which, like guardian angels, superintend, while the watchful sentinel guards around. Apropos: we do have some of the finest nights you ever witnessed. The moonlight is so clear and bright, we easily see to read by it. ”

“ But draws not in the air.
And I know, what time the moonlight
On her nest of shadows will sit,
Out on the dim lawn gliding
That shadowy shadow will flit.
V. The moon is dreaming upward
From a sea of cloud and gleam ”

“ The moon had been lighted and was hung in a treetop. ”

“ From my earliest days, living the greater part of the time in the country, I have heard that the moon exercises a decided influence over the weather, and over the growth of vegetation. I have neighbors who would never think of planting certain things except ‘in the New of the moon’! Some will not cut timber except ‘in the Old of the Moon,’ as they say that the sap is drawn up by the moon’s influence when she is growing. ”

“ ⁠——The sky is overcast
With a continuous cloud of texture close,
Heavy and wan, all whitened by the Moon,
Which through that veil is indistinctly seen,
A dull, contracted circle, yielding light
So feebly spread that not a shadow falls,
Chequering the ground, from rock, plant, tree, or tower.
At length a pleasant instantaneous gleam
Startles the pensive traveller as he treads
His lonesome path, with unobserving eye
Bent earthwards; he looks up—the clouds are split
Asunder,—and above his head he sees
The clear moon, and the glory of the heavens.
There, in a black blue vault she sails along, ”

“ The moonlight flooded that great, silent land. The reaped fields lay yellow in it. The straw stacks and poplar windbreaks threw sharp black shadows. The roads were white rivers of dust. The sky was a deep, crystalline blue, and the stars were few and faint. Everything seemed to have succumbed, to have sunk to sleep, under the great, golden, tender, midsummer moon. The splendor of it seemed to transcend human life and human fate. ”

“ Rolling up the back drop the change is made slowly and carefully until the moon is discovered in the night half of the sky and goes up with it, while the usual moonlight mediums are brought into requisition to increase the brightness of the view. ”

“ I ran home in the moonlight with firm strides; for the sun-love made me strong. ”

“ GRACIOUS MOONLIGHT Even as the moon grows queenlier in mid-space
When the sky darkens, and her cloud-rapt car
Thrills with intenser radiance from afar,—
So lambent, lady, beams thy sovereign grace
When the drear soul desires thee. ”

“ See yonder fire! It is the moon
Slow rising o'er the eastern hill.
It glimmers on the forest tips,
And through the dewy foliage drips
In little rivulets of light,
And makes the heart in love with night. ”