Robert Lee Frost

A Loose Mountain

 (Telescopic)

 Did you stay up last night (the Magi did)
 To see the star shower known as Leonid
 That once a year by hand or apparatus
 Is so mysteriously pelted at us?
 It is but fiery puffs of dust and pebbles,
 No doubt directed at our heads as rebels
 In having taken artificial light
 Against the ancient sovereignty of night.
 A fusillade of blanks and empty flashes,
 It never reaches earth except as ashes
 Of which you feel no least touch on your face
 Nor find in dew the slightest cloudy trace.
 Nevertheless it constitutes a hint
 That the loose mountain lately seen to glint
 In sunlight near us in momentous swing
 Is something in a Balearic sling
 The heartless and enormous Outer Black
 Is still withholding in the Zodiac
 But from irresolution in his back
 About when best to have us in our orbit,
 So we won't simply take it and absorb it.