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”

The stars, which stand as thick as dewdrops on the fields of heaven. – Philip James Bailey

Thank God, all you who have a spark of rational piety in your hearts, for the glorious commonplace of earth and sky,—for this cloud-embosomed planet in which you pass your lives. – William Smith, Gravenhurst, or Thoughts on Good and Evil, 1862