Evening had fallen. A rim of the young moon cleft the pale waste of sky line, the rim of a silver hoop embedded in grey sand: and the tide was flowing in fast to the land with a low whisper of her waves, islanding a few last figures in distant pools.
If I venture to displace ... the microscopical speck of dust... on the point of my finger,... I have done a deed which shakes the Moon in her path, which causes the Sun to be no longer the Sun, and which alters forever the destiny of multitudinous myriads of stars.
Let me twine Mine arms about that body, where against My grained ash an hundred times hath broke And scarr'd the moon with splinters: here I clip The anvil of my sword, and do contest As hotly and as nobly with thy love As ever in ambitious strength I did Contend against thy valour. Know thou first, I loved the maid I married; never man Sigh'd truer breath; but that I see thee here, Thou noble thing! more dances my rapt heart Than when I first my wedded mistress saw Bestride my threshold.
There rises the moon, broad and tranquil, through the branches of a walnut tree on a hill opposite. I apostrophize it in the words of Faust; "O gentle moon, that lookest for the last time upon my agonies!" --or something to that effect.
...And, all at once, the moon arouse through the thin ghastly mist, And was crimson in color... And they lynx which dwelleth forever in the tomb, came out therefrom. And lay down at the feet of the demon. And looked at him steadily in the face.
And yet more bright
Shines out the Julian star,
As moon outglows each lesser light.
[Lat., Micat inter omnes
Iulium sidus, velut inter ignes
Luna minores.]
A cosmic philosophy is not constructed to fit a man; a cosmic philosophy is constructed to fit a cosmos. A man can no more possess a private religion than he can possess a private sun and moon.