The Occultation Of Venus

The occultation of Venus and the moon, in March, 1899, was wonderfully beautiful and impressive as seen in the desert.

A jeweled crown for an old man’s brow, That mystical, splendid, tropic sky Arched low o’er the desert, reaching far Its weary leagues wind-parched and dry: So bare and lone and sad it lay, The gray old land that seemed to yearn With a human longing for some caress From its granite barriers, grim and stern.

Shouldering up to the very stars The strong peaks lifted their solemn might; And through their rock-gapped pinnacles burned The wondrous glory that charmed the night. Like a giant’s scimeter wrought in gold The late moon rose in the dawn-touched east, And close beside white Venus shone, As once she shone on shrine and priest.

Like a soul’s white flame the planet passed-- Alone the moon rode proud and high-- O wait of God! the lost star swung A silver sphere in the hither sky;-- (Is it so, O Life, that thy light is lost In the disk of Death if we could but know?) And the old land blushed with sudden youth In the tender fire of the morning-glow.