a lunar eclipse poem

Here I am waiting for the lunar eclipse, so I decided to look for a lunar eclipse poem. And I lucked out because I found one by Thomas Hardy. I might be the only person I know who likes Hardy, but I love his stuff. I don't believe he's as fatalistic as most people think he is. I think he knows the characters of his novels could do better and it pisses him off that they don't. This poem reminds me of a song, "From A Distance" only without the godly optimism.

I found this sonnet here.

At a Lunar Eclipse

By Thomas Hardy

6/2/1840-1/11/1928


Thy shadow, Earth, from Pole to Central Sea,
Now steals along upon the Moon's meek shine
In even monochrome and curving line
Of imperturbable serenity.

How shall I link such sun-cast symmetry
With the torn troubled form I know as thine,
That profile, placid as a brow divine,
With continents of moil and misery?

And can immense Mortality but throw
So small a shade, and Heaven's high human scheme
Be hemmed within the coasts yon arc implies?

Is such the stellar gauge of earthly show,
Nation at war with nation, brains that teem,
Heroes, and women fairer than the skies?

the lunar eclipse has started!

I'm checking in on the lunar eclipse for a few minutes at a time, every so often. I have a roommate who might have decided to watch the whole thing though she swears that eclipses cause people to be violent and chaotic for the next two weeks. She says the full moon does that too, so there you go.

For the record, I do not think that statistics bear either of these out. But lunar eclipse is pretty.

edit: naturally, the fog rolled in before the eclipse was complete.