Starry Night, 1889
Miror surgentem per puram Oriona noctem.
Candida luna licet
Adstet et exiguis incumbat durior astris
Verum hic Orion miror quam crescat in altum et
Quam micet igne suo,
Non suus aestherium quem purpurat impetus, itque
Molle reditque decus:
Quin versare aliquos septena cacumina ventos
Turbine posse putes.
Look at the stars! look, look up at the skies!
O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air!
The bright boroughs, the circle-citadels there!
Down in dim woods the diamond delves! the elves'-eyes!
The grey lawns cold where gold, where quickgold lies!
Wind-beat whitebeam! airy abeles set on a flare!
Flake-doves sent floating forth at a farmyard scare! --
Ah well! it is all a purchase, all is a prize.
Buy then! bid then! -- What? -- Prayer, patience, alms, vows,
Look, look: a May-mess, like on orchard boughs!
Look! March-bloom, like on mealed-with-yellow sallows!
These are indeed the barn; withindoors house
The shocks. This piece-bright paling shuts the spouse
Christ home, Christ and his mother and all his hallows.
1877
undated
[trans: 'I wonder at Orion rising through the clear night, even though the bright moon is close at hand and presses more heavily on the small stars nor allows them to shine with her. Yet I marvel how this Orion grows up the sky and how it gleams with its own fire, which a force that is not its own makes bright in the heavens. and its soft lustre comes and goes: why, yhou would think that some winds had the power to whirl its seven star-points round and round. ....']
The Starlight Night
