Robert Frost reflects on Canis Major

CANIS MAJOR

The great Overdog,
That heavenly beast
With a star in one eye,
Gives a leap in the east.
He dances upright
All the way to the west,
And never once drops
On his forefeet to rest.
I'm a poor underdog,
But to-night I will bark
With the great Overdog
That romps through the dark.


Robert Frost, 1928


 

Analysis can kill the sense of mystery

WHEN I HEARD THE LEARN'D ASTRONOMER

When I heard the learn'd astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired, and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.


 Walt Whitman, 1865

 

Reflections on Chabot Observatory, Oakland

Edna Linsley Gressitt was the sister of the renowned astronomer Earle Garfield Linsley. He was the former Director of the Chabot Observatory in Oakland, California. His twin brother was my paternal grandfather, Paul Judson Linsley. Paul was a published poet and horticulturalist who cultivated hybrid roses with Luther Burbank of Santa Rosa, California. He also developed several strains of disease resistant avocado trees.


Climbing Up
By Edna Linsley Gressitt

Up,
Climbing up,
Slowly,
Thru the hostile chaparral,
Under the stiff, suspicious trees,
Hushed from any breath of breeze,
Watchfully,
Without a rustle,
On and up,
By the lonely creeping trail
Winding up the wooded steep
Of the shadowed canyon side,
In faint star light,
Where
Still,
Dim and still,
In quaint far light,
Huddled, breathless, sleeping quail
And noiseless brown hares, burrowing deep,
And still gray gophers hide,
Shivering
When the weird quivering
Cry of the night owl beats the soundless air;
Up, at last
In clear star light,
To the vast
White structure massed
On the cleared crest of the hill,
In sheer, far light,
With its circling domes of grace
Watching long
In the wordless, waiting night,
Searching far
Past Man's hope or thought or will,
In the boundless, glowing space,
Catching there
Signals from the Sovereign Power,
Granted in night's hallowed hour.


This poem first appeared in Sierra Educational News. Created in 1883 as an astronomical observatory, the Chabot Science Center and Planetarium is dedicated to applied science and technology. It offers a wide spectrum of educational, research and public programs.