The impending eclipse reminded NeoNeocon of  a poem by Archibald Macleish:
And here face down beneath the sun Â
And here upon earth’s noonward height Â
To feel the always coming onÂ
The always rising of the night:Â
To feel creep up the curving east Â
The earthy chill of dusk and slow Â
Upon those under lands the vast Â
And ever climbing shadow growÂ
And strange at Ecbatan the trees Â
Take leaf by leaf the evening strange Â
The flooding dark about their knees Â
The mountains over Persia changeÂ
And now at Kermanshah the gate Â
Dark empty and the withered grass Â
And through the twilight now the late Â
Few travelers in the westward passÂ
And Baghdad darken and the bridge Â
Across the silent river goneÂ
And through Arabia the edgeÂ
Of evening widen and steal on
RTWT. Â The poem reminded me of another poem, George Meredith’s Lucifer in Starlight:
On a starred night Prince Lucifer uprose.
Tired of his dark dominion swung the fiend
Above the rolling ball in cloud part screened,
Where sinners hugged their spectre of repose.
Poor prey to his hot fit of pride were those.
And now upon his western wing he leaned,
Now his huge bulk o’er Afric’s sands careened,
Now the black planet shadowed Arctic snows.
Soaring through wider zones that pricked his scars
With memory of the old revolt from Awe,
He reached a middle height, and at the stars,
Which are the brain of heaven, he looked, and sank.
Around the ancient track marched, rank on rank,
The army of unalterable law.Â
Tired of his dark dominion swung the fiend
Above the rolling ball in cloud part screened,
Where sinners hugged their spectre of repose.
Poor prey to his hot fit of pride were those.
And now upon his western wing he leaned,
Now his huge bulk o’er Afric’s sands careened,
Now the black planet shadowed Arctic snows.
Soaring through wider zones that pricked his scars
With memory of the old revolt from Awe,
He reached a middle height, and at the stars,
Which are the brain of heaven, he looked, and sank.
Around the ancient track marched, rank on rank,
The army of unalterable law.Â