But the moon
is not to be judged alone by the quantity of light she sends to us, but
also by her influence on the earth and its inhabitants. "The moon
gravitates toward the earth, and the earth reciprocally toward the moon."
The poet who walks by moonlight is conscious of a tide in his thought
which is to be referred to lunar influence. I will endeavor to separate
the tide in my thoughts from the current distractions of the day. I would
warn my hearers that they must not try my thoughts by a daylight standard,
but endeavor to realize that I speak out of the night. All depends on your
point of view. In Drake's "Collection of Voyages," Wafer says of some
Albinoes among the Indians of Darien, "They are quite white, but their
whiteness is like that of a horse, quite different from the fair or pale
European, as they have not the least tincture of a blush or sanguine
complexion. * * * Their eyebrows are milk-white, as is likewise the hair
of their heads, which is very fine. * * * They seldom go abroad in the
daytime, the sun being disagreeable to them, and causing their eyes, which
are weak and poring, to water, especially if it shines towards them, yet
they see very well by moonlight, from which we call them moon-eyed."
Neither in our thoughts in these moonlight walks, methinks, is there "the
least tincture of a blush or sanguine complexion," but we are
intellectually and morally Albinoes,--children of Endymion,--such is the
effect of conversing much with the moon.
I complain of Arctic voyagers that, they do not enough remind us of the
constant peculiar dreariness of the scenery, and the perpetual twilight of
the Arctic night. So he whose theme is moonlight, though he may find it
difficult, must, as it were, illustrate it with the light of the moon
alone.
Many men walk by day; few walk by night. It is a very different season.
Take a July night, for instance. About ten o'clock,--when man is asleep,
and day fairly forgotten,--the beauty of moonlight is seen over lonely
pastures where cattle are silently feeding. On all sides novelties present
themselves. Instead of the sun there are the moon and stars, instead of
the wood-thrush there is the whip-poor-will,--instead of butterflies in
the meadows, fire-flies, winged sparks of fire! who would have believed
it? What kind of cool deliberate life dwells in those dewy abodes
associated with a spark of fire? So man has fire in his eyes, or blood, or
brain. Instead of singing birds, the half-throttled note of a cuckoo
flying over, the croaking of frogs, and the intenser dream of crickets.
But above all, the wonderful trump of the bull-frog, ringing from Maine to
Georgia. The potato-vines stand upright, the corn grows apace, the bushes
loom, the grain-fields are boundless. On our open river terraces once
cultivated by the Indian, they appear to occupy the ground like an army,--
their heads nodding in the breeze.
Small trees and shrubs are seen in the midst, overwhelmed as by an
inundation. The shadows of rocks and trees, and shrubs and hills, are more
conspicuous than the objects themselves. The slightest irregularities in
the ground are revealed by the shadows, and what the feet find
comparatively smooth, appears rough and diversified in consequence. For
the same reason the whole landscape is more variegated and picturesque
than by day. The smallest recesses in the rocks are dim and cavernous; the
ferns in the wood appear of tropical size.
