quotations about the moon
We ran as if to meet the moon
That slowly dawned behind the trees,
The barren boughs without the leaves,
Without the birds, without the breeze.
ROBERT FROST
"Going for Water"
The moon of Rome, chaste as the icicle
That's curded by the frost from purest snow.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Coriolanus
The moon had been observing the earth close-up longer than anyone. It must have witnessed all of the phenomena occurring--and all of the acts carried out--on this earth. But the moon remained silent; it told no stories. All it did was embrace the heavy past with cool, measured detachment. On the moon there was neither air nor wind. Its vacuum was perfect for preserving memories unscathed. No one could unlock the heart of the moon.
HARUKI MURAKAMI
1Q84
If thou would'st view fair Melrose aright,
Go visit it by the pale moonlight;
For the gay beams of lightsome day
Gild, but to flout, the ruins gray.
WALTER SCOTT
The Lay of the Last Minstrel
I loved thee, gentle moon! thou wert to me
Brother and sister and companion--all
My kin, while standing on the silent lea
I watch'd thy glory in the starry hall;
And thy white beams like shower of diamonds fall
Upon the azure desert; lovely light,
Sure thou wert fashion'd, when Sin's fatal pall
Was flung o'er earth, to welcome her flight
The lone and weary soul that journeys through the night.
DUGALD MOORE
"To the Moon"
I am a cemetery by the moon unblessed.
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
Paris Spleen
We were obsessed with the moon and whether we could one day visit it. The day we finally walked on it was celebrated worldwide as perhaps man's greatest achievement. But it was while we were there, gathering rocks from the moon's desolate landscape, that we looked up and caught a glimpse of just how incredible our own planet was. Its singular astonishing beauty. We called her Mother Earth. Because she gave birth to us, and then we sucked her dry.
JON STEWART
Earth (The Book): A Visitor's Guide to the Human Race
If the Sun and Moon should doubt,
They'd immediately go out.
WILLIAM BLAKE
Auguries of Innocence
We may even speak of a metaphysics of the moon, in the sense of a consistent system of "truths" relating to the mode of being peculiar to living creatures, to everything in the cosmos that shares in life, that is, in becoming, growth and waning, death and resurrection.
MIRCEA ELIADE
The Sacred and the Profane
Moonlight is sculpture; sunlight is painting.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
The American Notebooks
Moon!
Moon!
I am prone before you.
Pity me,
And drench me in loneliness.
AMY LOWELL
"On a Certain Critic"
Thou Moon! Sun of the Night,
Sister mystic of the Day;
Look down, pause in thy flight!
Calm me with thy aural ray,
Enchanting souls to silver sleep.
Look down from out thy airy keep,
My fevered senses hypnotize;
Shut out the World, whereto Mind flies--
Ambitious Mind, with travail sore;
Its fibre rest, its calm restore.
WILLIAM BATCHELDER GREENE
"An Invocation", Cloudrifts at Twilight
The moving Moon went up the sky,
And nowhere did abide;
Softly she was going up,
And a star or two beside.
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
That's one small step for [a] man; one giant leap for mankind.
NEIL ARMSTRONG
remark upon becoming the first man to step onto the surface of the moon, July 20, 1969
Here among flowers a single jug of wine,
No close friends here, I pour alone
And lift a cup to bright moon, ask it to join me,
Then face my shadow and we become three.
The moon never has known how to drink,
All my shadow does is follow my body,
But with moon and shadow as companions a while,
This joy I find will surely last till spring.
I sing, the moon just lingers on,
I dance, and my shadow scatters wildly.
When still sober we share friendship and pleasure,
Then entirely drunk each goes his own way--
Let us join in travels beyond human feelings
And plan to meet far in the river of stars.
LI BAI
"Drinking Alone by Moonlight"
The devil's in the moon for mischief; they
Who call'd her chaste, methinks, began too soon
Their nomenclature; there is not a day,
The longest, not the twenty-first of June,
Sees half the business in a wicked way,
On which three single hours of moonshine smile--
And then she looks so modest all the while!
LORD BYRON
Don Juan
The moon like a flower
In heaven's high bower,
With silent delight,
Sits and smiles on the night.
WILLIAM BLAKE
"Night"
Thy peerless glory, gentle orb! I sing,
Enamoured of thy beam's enchanting light,
Which, like a silver veil, adorns the dark
And melancholy brow of ebon night,
And gives her sable hue coquettish charm.
Celestial wand'rer! Mild magnificence!
Earth's fair twin sister swathed with infant bands!
Shed thy dumb eloquence upon my soul,
And kindle its dim torch with light of song!
C. B. LANGSTON
"To the Moon"
The moon is no door. It is a face in its own right,
White as a knuckle and terribly upset.
It drags the sea after it like a dark crime; it is quiet
With the O-gape of complete despair.
SYLVIA PLATH
"The Moon and the Yew Tree", Ariel
The moon hangs alien, heavy, like a lock on a door; the door is tightly shut.
YEVGENY ZAMYATIN
"The North", The Dragon: Fifteen Stories