Oh beautiful are starry leas
that grace the vast expanse
where seen upon the skyey seas
through telescopic glance
a chambered nautilus aloft
or so its semblance seems
by brushstroke watercolored soft
in allegoric dreams
is painted as with haloed hues
of delicate pastels
urged on by great galactic muse
‘midst layered pearly shells.
A hundred million light-years far
from Earth, in Pisces group,
where we revolve around Sun star
and dwell amongst our troupe,
this interacting duo lies
elliptical the one,
while other into spiral guise
its starry realms has spun.
NGC Four Seventy-four
and Four Seven O, too,
make up the pair we here explore
in versified review.
The former with its tidal tails
which might be some debris
stretched out in interstellar trails
from coalescing spree
is coupled in the stunning scene
with galaxy nearby
both daubed upon celestial screen
of stippled starry sky.
Shell strata in the image shown
like ripples on a pond,
perhaps from hit afoot in zone,
spread into space beyond.
Four Seven Four, colossal, has
a spheric core from where
the wavelet shells in tints topaz
of sheer transparent air
could be to nautilus compared
whose toils would give one pause
as through the years its chambers flared
with ‘webs of living gauze',
those grand poetic lines of Holmes,
some verses here to quote,
where he of ‘vaster-vaulted domes'
and ‘stately mansions' wrote.
That system pearled in skies unfurled
enormous in its size
alongside a galactic world
that's also giant size
reminds that we're ‘frail tenants' all
encased in mortal shell
playacting ‘dim dreamed lives' in thrall
as earthly ways compel
to chambered nautilus akin
with beingness endowed
on this our tiny orb within
the universe's crowd,
or multiverse as I suspect
at least much more abstruse
as is causation and effect
than mostly minds deduce.
Thoreau in his poetic prose
said, ‘time is but a stream
we drink of, as it onward flows
and while we drink we deem
‘how thin its current, for we eye
the sandy bed below
so shallow, as it's gliding by
in ever onward flow.
‘And yet eternity remains
if we would deeper drink
than mere mentality constrains
in terms of how we think, '
to amply paraphrase the words
of passage from Thoreau
who credited the songs of birds
more rapture to bestow
with every mellisonant note
amongst our taxon's herds
as Mother Nature's antidote
for humankind's absurds.
Yet though foolhardily we fuss,
adrift in death and birth,
still we cannot give up on us
our species here on Earth.
So when my thoughts take darker turn
and I fall into gloom
at what my senses may discern,
I might seek flower's bloom
as more fulfilling to attend
or cooing of a dove
for remedy to spirits mend,
plus splendors up above
to lend perspective further than
unaided sight can span
or deeper search beyond my scan
for saving grace in Man.
Analogies are found where'er
the human gaze may peer
on land and ocean here and there
or in the cosmic sphere
like chambered nautilus on high
in poem Holmes composed,
as flights of fancy freely fly
to wonders undisclosed
whence one may leave the shell innate,
delusion's bounded plane,
and reach a true enlightened state
to sail on boundless main…
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
A beautiful rendition of great elegance. Exquisitely crafted and vividly conveyed. Thanks for sharing and do stay enriched.
What a wonderful commentary! I am truly pleased! Thank you for reading this long poem!