Storyteller's Night Sky 2025-08-16 (Tennyson's Telescope)

As a calendarist, I love the convergence of things that takes place very year in the first week of August: August 1st is the seasonal cross quarter, or halfway point, highlighting a dynamic turning point in the cycle of the year; August 6th brings the Christian Feast of the Transfiguration, narrated in chapter 9 of the Luke Gospel and dramatically articulated through renaissance master Raphael’s final work of art, which stood at the foot of his bed when he died; and, August 6 is also the anniversary of the birth of Victorian poet Alfred Tennyson, whose love of astronomy is readily in apparent in many of his major works. I’m Mary Stewart Adams, and this is The Storyteller’s Night Sky. What is it about this season that makes it so dynamic? The year’s most popular and sometimes most prolific meteor shower is underway. Known as the Perseids, these shooting stars hail from the comet Swift-Tuttle, which was discovered in 1862m though the meteor shower itself was in evidence for centuries. The Perseids are active from mid-July to mid-August every year, with a peak overnight August 12 to 13. This year the night sky will be awash in waning gibbous moonlight Durgin the peak, which doesn’t bode well for observing the shower, but still, there’s much to celebrate and anticipate! Let’s follow the lead of Tennyson. He was born on August 6, so while the meteor shower was underway. It is easy to imagine that the poet was well aware of the meteor shower, and even to imagine that he mused about its relationship to his own birth. In 1847 his poem “The Princess” was published, his first attempt at a long narrative. In it he wrote a few magnificent passages that point to the classical Greek myth of Perseus and his birth from a shower of golden stars. He wrote: Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white; Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk; Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font. The firefly wakens; waken thou with me. Now droops the milk-white peacock like a ghost, And like a ghost she glimmers on to me. Now lies the Earth all Danaë to the stars, And all thy heart lies open unto me. Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me. Now folds the lily all her sweetness up, And slips into the bosom of the lake. So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip Into my bosom and be lost in me. Tennyson included the stars everywhere throughout his poetry, which makes me think of him like Zeus, showering golden stars upon the Earth to bring heroic hearts to birth. In Locksley Hall he wrote: Many a night from yonder ivied casement, ere I went to rest, Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the West. Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising thro' the mellow shade, Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid. He even celebrated the consummation of marriage by placing it in the context of the rotation of the Earth when he wrote: Move eastward happy earth and leave yon orange sunset waning slow, from fringes of the faded even o happy planet eastward go ~ which is a great way to memorize which direction the Earth is turning, if you’re so inclined. Tennyson’s second volume of poetry was published in 1842, and the narrative poem The Princess came in 1847. In between, in 1846, the planet Neptune was discovered, after first being predicted by mathematical calculation. The nature of Neptune’s discovery was a sensational moment in 19th century science, and it was said of the French astronomer Le Verrier, whose calculations led to its discovery that he discovered the planet “with the point of his pen.” I’d like to argue that as a poet, Alfred Tennyson used his pen like an astronomer with his telescope, discovering and opening new worlds in the soul of imagination. Like his Ulysses, his purpose was to sail beyond the sunset and the baths of all the western stars… a flying star shot thro’ the sky.