by Chris Peterson » Sat Dec 21, 2019 3:17 pm
We celebrate the winter solstice each year, and tonight, as every year, I'll read this for our guests:
From dipper's Archer of the Milky Way
To twinkling Twins in starry Gemini,
Our Sun climbs slowly northward, day by day,
Past stars that shine unseen in azure sky.
From Archer unto Capricornus, and
Aquarius to coupled Pisces when
The month of March is reigning o'er the land,
And nature, roused by spring, awakes again.
From Pisces to the Ram, our Sun ascends,
To Taurus and at length to Gemini
When, lingering, the springtime season ends,
And Vega beams like herald of July.
From sear December unto verdant June,
Our Sun shines higher with each passing noon.
-Charles Nevers Holmes, presented at a Mt. Wilson astronomical conference in 1923
We celebrate the winter solstice each year, and tonight, as every year, I'll read this for our guests:
[i]From dipper's Archer of the Milky Way
To twinkling Twins in starry Gemini,
Our Sun climbs slowly northward, day by day,
Past stars that shine unseen in azure sky.
From Archer unto Capricornus, and
Aquarius to coupled Pisces when
The month of March is reigning o'er the land,
And nature, roused by spring, awakes again.
From Pisces to the Ram, our Sun ascends,
To Taurus and at length to Gemini
When, lingering, the springtime season ends,
And Vega beams like herald of July.
From sear December unto verdant June,
Our Sun shines higher with each passing noon.
-Charles Nevers Holmes, presented at a Mt. Wilson astronomical conference in 1923[/i]