Daily Kennebec journal., 1913-11-28
AUTUMN MOONS.
Poets, From Homer On, Versed in
MoonIore.

HiOOfIIOTS.
In these happy months of autumn
there are nights of such serene and
majestic beauty-nights of medicinal
and fertilizine to the spirit, that me-
thinks sensitive nature would not
devote them TO oblivion The first
nights of October were. this year,
family illumned by the earlier quar-
ters of the moon. She started on her
monthly journey a faint crescent of
silrery light. a little boat floating in
an opal sea, or tiny curled feather
dropping softly down from the wing
of some heavenly bird.
As the short days faded and the
nights darkened the hour of twilight,
she mounted higher and higher,
moved farther and farther to the East.
smiling all the while more radantly
until al last she turned her full face
toward the earth.
The moon every season is beautf-
full and we miss something out of our
lives il we let even one go by unno-
ticed. The moon of Spring, with its
calm, cold light, the moon of Summer.
with its alluring sparkle, the moon of
Winter with its cool ehaste glitter
each has 4 mystery of light and shade.
a world of poetic association, of weird
teachings and oracular suggestions.
We hear much of the poet-loved
poet-sung moon of May; there is a
spell about Juen moonlight that hath
time-defying power, but there is
special magic in the moon of Autumn,
the October moon of harvest-no oth-
er moon of the year can equal it for
i'r'a'@'ce 3rl ma gnifeenee. Night af-
= = : ~ z rly The same hour,
~ A ne sun sinks down behind the
western clouds, the bright moon APP
pears in the East Up, up it rises
from behind some solitary hill or
broad and CLASSY lake. and quickly
floats into the still. transparent air in
all the glory of rounded world
All over the sky tremulous lumi-
nence makes paler the radiant stars.
The glory of the sun, the glory of the
moon, reach up from west and east to
flood the heavens with dusk and ten
der shining. II looks like a fair flat
dish. as children sometimes say. but
swings out in the crystal air like a
shining ball We can see beyond it,
and around it; and its apparent size is
a wonder to us. Just as to our anees-
tors. centuries ago.
Men have had strange fancies about
our earth's fair satellite Many are
the fables and supertitions that have
grown up around it, Every language
has it moon fables; every nation has
tens of thousands of dollars, the
its moonlore. Men have worshiped it
as goddess. sung of it as the birth
place of dreams, honored it as the
abiding place of benefleent spirits en-
powered To visit earth, to aid good
men and punish evildoers.
Some have held The moon to be the
| first home of humanity. the paradise
lost by Ewes pansgrsssion; others
| have believed it to be the place TO
which the souls of men ascended after
death. Byron said:
Sweet Dians crest floats through the
| azure air an island OF the blest
and Il modern poetess has avowed her
faith that the weary find sweet rest
in Luna's serene sphere. There was
time when many scientists believed
the moon to be a world of fire.
But others taught that it had seas
and rivers mountains. plains and
| woods. plants far loVelier than those
of earth, men of larger growth and
! higher mental faculties than those of
earthly mold In folklore there are
many variations Of the man in the
moon story Perhaps the oldest is
that of the man who when the chill
dren of Israel sojourned in the Wild
| erness. was detected gathering sticks
upon the sabbath day, whereupon he
was taken outside the camp and
stoned TO death. Afterward he was
condemned to eternal purgatory in the
moon, where he may be seen with his
bundle of sticks on his back, ever
climbing without gaining a step, ever
lonely, save for the company of his
faithful dog.
Poor Caliban believed this story and
worshiped Stephano as the man in the
moon Il have seen thee in her, and
me thee, and thy dog, and thy bush"
In Germany the story is slightly al
tered. There, they tell how, many
ages ago, an old man went into the
woods to cut stick on Sunday, saying
Sunday on earth or Monday in
| Heaven. it is all the same to me-
Whereupon he was instantly trans
i fcrred to the cold moon, knife, fagot
and all, and there he stays forever as
an awful warning against Sabbath
breaking.