the hush between two days, when the last sound of one has died away,
and before the first stir of the other thrills the morning air. Then,
gazing through the lenses of its noble telescope, we welcomed the
swift waves of light pulsating toward us from the shoreless ocean we
call space. There is a mysterious beauty about the radiance of a star
that far surpasses that of the moon. The latter glitters only with
reflected light; but a star (that is to say a distant sun), when seen
through a telescope, frequently scintillates with different colors
like a diamond, and quivers like a thing of life. Moreover, the moon,
forever waxing, waning, or presenting almost stupidly its great flat
face, is continually changing; but the fixed star is always there. It
fills the thoughtful soul with awe to look upon the starry heavens
through such an instrument as that at Flagstaff. Space for the moment
seems annihilated. We are apparently transported, as observers, from
our tiny planet to the confines of our solar system, and, gazing
thence still farther toward infinity, we watch with bated breath the
birth, the progress, and the death of worlds. To one of the most
distant objects in the depths of space, known as the Ring Nebula, the
author addressed the following lines:

TO THE RING NEBULA.

O, pallid spectre of the midnight skies!
Whose phantom features in the dome of Night
Elude the keenest gaze of wistful eyes
Till amplest lenses aid the failing sight,
On heaven's blue sea the farthest isle of fire.
From thee, whose glories it would fain admire,
Must vision, baffled, in despair retire!