Unstarry Night, Ctd.

One reader - who works in Big Bend National Park in Texas - sent the photo below from his "work-place" and one sent this poem by Emily Dickinson, "We grow accustomed to the Dark":

We grow accustomed to the Dark
When light is put away
As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp
To witness her Goodbye

A MomentWe uncertain step
For newness of the night
Thenfit our Vision to the Dark
And meet the Roaderect

And so of largerDarkness
Those Evenings of the Brain
When not a Moon disclose a sign
Or Starcome outwithin

The Bravestgrope a little
And sometimes hit a Tree
Directly in the Forehead
But as they learn to see

Either the Darkness alters
Or something in the sight
Adjusts itself to Midnight
And Life steps almost straight.

This poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins, also sent in by a reader, is another classic:

Look at the stars! look, look up at the skies!
O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air!
The bright boroughs, the circle-citadels there!

Down in dim woods the diamond delves! the elves'-eyes!
The grey lawns cold where gold, where quickgold lies!          
Wind-beat whitebeam! airy abeles set on a flare!
Flake-doves sent floating forth at a farmyard scare!
Ah well! it is all a purchase, all is a prize.
Buy then! bid then!What?Prayer, patience, aims, vows.
Look, look: a May-mess, like on orchard boughs!         
Look! March-bloom, like on mealed-with-yellow sallows!
These are indeed the barn; withindoors house
The shocks. This piece-bright paling shuts the spouse
Christ home, Christ and his mother and all his hallows.