Kayaking on Turee Pond with Beth at
sunset (having just missed a classic red descent), with this poem and its imagery in mind:
Out, out upon the smooth dark lake glides my canoe.
And the shadows from the moon,
Which chase here and there upon its placid face,
Are the only things which break
-- Save my own craft’s rippling wake --
The deep, dark color of its blue.
Soft, slow descends the veil of night,
Til the circling shore sinks in its folds.
And the star-lit sky,
And the lake, and I
Are alone with quiet, peaceful night,
Touched gently by the moon’s soft light
While stillness reigns above, behind, before.
The heavens high above the lake arch o’er my boat.
And are reflected from below so true,
They seem both o’er and under my canoe.
Each sky-dome meets the other at the lake,
And so a perfect sphere they seem to make,
And through mid-space, in solitude I float.
“Solitude”, William Dix, 1889.
(scribed 45 years ago)
It captivated me in the late 60s. It was pretty much that way this eve. Near full moon, gentle, warm breeze. No evening star for some reason yet “And now the first star is lit, and I go home” was operative. When we neared the landing, several young people were overly solicitous, presumably because of our perceived age and our coming in from the dark, that it proved a distraction.
And then I rediscovered this other moonlit episode, suitably linked as
"fragile memory".
.