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But, alas I there is an infirmity of vision; we see through a glass darkly. We can't see through a millstone. The firmament has been very like that, for some days, all compact with clouds. We thought something was grinding for us. "Now it is coming!" we said last evening. But no. It was no go, or no come, rather.
He travels yearly from the hyperborean regions toward the south, and daily he traverses the firmament in a chariot. He sleeps in a sea-nymph's bosom or rises from the dawn's couch. In all this we see clearly a scarcely figurative description of the material sun and its motions. A quasi-scientific fancy spins these fables almost inevitably to fill the vacuum not yet occupied by astronomy.
Being appealed to, several astronomers turned their eyes in the direction of the sun, where the black firmament was ablaze with stars, and in a moment recognized the earth-star shining there, with the moon attending close at hand. "There," said one, "is the earth. Can you throw straight enough to hit it?"
All day the dark, dreary rain had fallen wearily, ceaselessly; but just as twilight, ghostly and gray, was creeping up from the horizon, there had flashed out a sudden sunburst of indescribable glory. The heavens seemed to open, and a glimpse of paradise to show, so grand and glorious was the oriflamme of crimson and purple and orange and gold that transfigured the whole firmament.
But astronomy had not advanced farther than to present an interesting subject of contemplation to the pious mind, which could only regard the firmament as a smooth surface spread out like a curtain, or bearing some resemblance to the canopy of a spacious tent.
And if I had had company and shipping for to go more beyond, I trow well, in certain, that we should have seen all the roundness of the firmament all about. For, as I have said to you before, the half of the firmament is between those two stars, the which halvendel I have seen.
All we see, hear, and touch, the remote sidereal firmament, as well as our own sea and land, and the elements which compose them, and the ordinances they obey, are His.
At the old scholar's words and manner, the mountaineer, too, forgot for a moment the thing that had brought him there, and a look of awe and wonder came over his rugged features, as the shepherd, with his face turned upward and his deep voice full of emotion, repeated, "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handiwork.
Beholding the king thus attacked by Satyaki in battle, and reduced to the position of Soma in the firmament while seized by Rahu, cries of woe arose from every section of the Kuru host. Hearing that uproar, the mighty car-warrior Kritavarman quickly proceeded to that spot where the puissant Madhava was battling.
Low down on the horizon are great masses of rain clouds, ragged and angry-looking, and the whole firmament seems to weigh down on the still earth, where everything is burnt and parched, the foliage of the trees hanging limp and heavily, and the grass, yellow and sere, mingling with the hot, white dust of the roads.
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