High in the air rises the forest of oaks, high over the oaks soar the eagle, high over the eagle sweep the clouds, high over the clouds gleam the stars… high over the stars sweep the angels… – Heinrich Heine, “Ideas: Book Le Grand,” 1826, translated from German by Charles

The man who has seen the rising moon break out of the clouds at midnight has been present like an archangel at the creation of light and of the world. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Look out into the July night, and see the broad belt of silver flame which flashes up the half of heaven, fresh and delicate as the bonfires of the meadow-flies. Yet the powers of numbers cannot compute its enormous age,—lasting as space and time,—embosomed in time and space. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Progress of Culture”

I suppose there were moonless nights and dark ones with but a silver shaving and pale stars in the sky, but I remember them all as flooded with the rich indolence of a full moon. – Willa Sibert Cather