R.I.P

Click on the images to read about the images – taken by twitter-users. I’ve chosen these images, as they are from the moon from various locations – and not like most other images, images from the moonlanding, Neil Armstrong, newspaper clippings, etc. Enjoy the poem by Walter de la Mare – and I like the next quote from a statement by Neil’s family, just after the news of his death had emerged:

“For those who may ask what they can do to honor Neil, we have a simple request. Honor his example of service, accomplishment and modesty, and the next time you walk outside on a clear night and see the moon smiling down at you, think of Neil Armstrong and give him a wink.”

Source: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/people/features/armstrong_obit.html

Silver

Slowly, silently, now the moon
Walks the night in her silver shoon;
This way, and that, she peers, and sees
Silver fruit upon silver trees;
One by one the casements catch
Her beams beneath the silvery thatch;
Couched in his kennel, like a log,
With paws of silver sleeps the dog;
From their shadowy cote the white breasts peep
Of doves in silver feathered sleep
A harvest mouse goes scampering by,
With silver claws, and silver eye;
And moveless fish in the water gleam,
By silver reeds in a silver stream.

Walter de la Mare

To the Moon
“O, thou.”
–CLAUD HALCRO.
BLESS thy bright face! though often blessed before
By raving maniac and by pensive fool;
One would say something more– but who as yet,
When looking at thee in the deep blue sky,
Could tell the poorest thought that struck his heart?
Yet all have tried, and all have tried in vain.
At thee, poor planet, is the first attempt
That the young rhymster ventures. And the sigh
The boyish lover heaves, is at the Moon.
Bards, who — ere Milton sung or Shakspeare played
The dirge of sorrow, or the song of love,
Bards, who had higher soared than Fesole,
Knew better of the Moon. ‘T was there they found
Vain thoughts, lost hopes, and fancy’s happy dreams,
And all sweet sounds, such as have fled afar
From waking discords, and from daylight jars.
There Ariosto puts the widow’s weeds
When she, new wedded, smiles abroad again,
And there the sad maid’s innocence — ‘t is there

That broken vows and empty promises,
All good intentions, with no answering deed
To anchor them on the substantial earth,
Are shrewdly packed. — And could he think that thou,
So bright, so pure of aspect, so serene,
Art the mere storehouse of our faults and crimes?
I’d rather think as puling rhymsters think,
O; love-sick maidens fancy — Yea, prefer
The dairy notion that thou art but cheese,
Green cheese –than thus misdoubt thy honest face.

–From Poems of John Brainard / by John Brainard 
Brainard, John G. C. (John Gardiner Calkins), 1796-1828
Courtesy of the University of Michigan Humanities Text Initiative American Verse Project.
http://www.windows2universe.org/art_and_music/tothemoon.html

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