Songs of two centuries :: :: University of Virginia Library

THE ECLIPSE.

The total eclipse of the sun which occurred May 28, 1900, was one of the grandest spectacles ever presented in our stupendous panorama of the sky. No town within the belt of its influence, but turned out a good share of its population to watch the grand event. Industry throughout our country was for those few impressive minutes almost at a standstill, and the whole population became astronomers. It is singular that a thousand other grand phenomena—constantly taking place in the heavens, and foretold as surely as was this—are viewed by the great multitude of people, with entire indifference —or not noticed at all.

A story which I still roll as a very pleasant morsel under my tongue, is that of a fine old gentleman in Pennsylvania who had read, sixty years before, that the eclipse was to take place at a certain hour and minute. For the whole sixty years the question remained in his mind, as to whether the event would really take place as predicted by the votaries of science. Would the earth and sun both be exactly on time? Would not something happen, as so often with man's goings and comings, to prevent the accomplishment? Might not “the best laid plans” of the universe “gang a-gley”? Oh, if he could only live till the moment at which the eclipse was predicted!

He did. He journeyed into the belt of totality, and stood with watch in hand, on a bright, sunstrewn day, wondering if the prediction would come true.

It did: and he went home one of the happiest men on the earth.

May 28, 1900.

A gleaming sun, well hoisted up the sky.
Round as when Ossian sang his feeble praise,
Bright as when Joshua gave it word to halt;
Waiting to be o'ershadowed by the moon—
Meek planetette—dog of the humble earth.
Waiting?—no: we were waiting: what to him
If for an hour some few rays were flung back
From the chilled world? 'Twas not Earth's ruling star,
But we—that waited: we who long decades
Had watched for him to vanish in mid-day,
That we might scan the comrades that he kept,
And trace rare secrets, darkened by his light.
'Twas we that waited—once again to know
If figures, called from long and wakeful nights,
That had for generations an event
For this great hour forewarned—told truths or lied.

The grass-lawn stretched to greet a southern sky,
By verdant trees eclipsed; the scolding birds
Threw agile shadows on the tossing grain;
A cloud, far in the deep mysterious west,
Darkened another cloud; the constant stars
Were covered by the flaming light of morn;
The city, half a hundred miles away,
That glared at us last eve through all that space,
With home-made lightnings—distance now obscured.

The great sun went about his daily task,
As ever in the death-darked centuries
That shrink in History's coffin. Not far off
He smiled at grave-stones—each a marble groan—
Voicing the sad and helpless grief of man,

That life must ever be eclipsed by death.
He seemed to smile that Earth, which night on night
Throws its own self in shadow—now should prate
At shadow of the moon.

Oh, not alone
We stood upon the breezy verdant hill,
And hailed the high event: a million eyes—
Ten million eyes—made journey with our own
Unto the burning globe: from hill and plain—
From field and palace—souls were traveling
To yonder soul of planets.

Lofty minds
That hunger always for the infinite,
Had a most godly feast; ignoble eyes
Looked at the sky for once; life's vaudeville
Viewed a rare act—a solemn pantomime
Billed for a century; superstition crouched
In haunts of mingled terror and delight,
Half doubting and half fearing.

Ah! just now
A tiny gold-clad sentry of Time's camp
With slender finger points the magic hour
That generations could not wait to see:
The breathless instant is not far away.

'Tis here! It fastens to the sun's sharp edge
And leads its many black-draped followers on:
The dragon that Columbus one dread day
Discovered while the savages knelt low
And made of him a god, is here again;
And slowly creeps the shadow.

Down, and down,
It delves, into the gold-mine of the sky.
Our sun is but a fragment of a sphere;
And now a crescent; 'tis a new new-moon
Brighter than any that we e'er have seen,

Greets our right shoulder!—Now—there is no sun—
No moon.

The green-tipped pines upon the lawn
Have gathered dusk, and sung a twilight song;
The birds fly home and nestle 'mid their leaves;
Through this new night the cattle now begin
Their stated pilgrimage from field to fold;
Brave steeds fling out their nostrils in affright;
And e'en the stars seem puzzled; for, just now,
The coy and wayward Mercury peeps down,
Now first for many years by day unveiled;
And comes a gleam from old Orion's belt.

Night has come back, that but a few short hours
Left us as ever: what had she forgot—
Dear, dreamy Night?

The morning walks in black;
The air grows chill; a weirdness is abroad;
'Tis like a fragment of the great last hour;
And well a mind not tutored by the voice
Of God-given Science, might fall dead with fright.

But look!—once more a crescent!—light again
Is victor in this battle of the sky!
Broader and broader grows the curve of gold—
Deeper and deeper nestles gloom in gloom—
And now at once the welcome sun again
Illumines earth, and sends a message down:

“This sunset and this sunrise in mid-sky,
Both in the hour—are signals that may mean—
If man so long such wonders can foresee—
What cannot God? If He can dim the sun
With worlds for clouds, and sweep them off again,
Can He not wipe away your clinging tears,
And move the fragile clouds 'neath which you walk,
O children of His heart?”