HARDY FORUM ARCHIVE HO2072 11/19/02 "CELESTIAL IMAGERY IN HARDY" ================================================================= Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 09:23:14 -0500 From: Rosemarie Morgan Subject: Re: All Things Bright and Beautiful And now for something completely different! Getting back to the enchantment, joy and wonder of the bard's own natural world, the following might be of as much interest to Hardy lovers as it would have been to him: The Leonids Meteor Shower tonight: They always say that they are going to be the best yet, well here's the claim to be the best for 100 years: 4am UK, 11pm USA - Look east high in the sky, at the sickle part of Leo. If like me you are a complete ignoramus about the night sky then start at the Pole Star, follow a line down through the pointy stars of the Plough, then continue the line one and a half times the distance already travelled (to the right a little bit) and you should reach a group of 7/8 stars which make up Leo! Blessings, Rosemarie Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 07:31:03 -0800 From: Betty Cortus Subject: Re: All Things Bright and Beautiful I could not drag myself out of bed at that unseemly hour dear Rosemarie, so I contented myself with an analagous Hardy Poem. Betty It bends far over Yell'ham Plain And we, from Yell'ham Height, Stand and regard its fiery train, So soon to swim from sight. It will return long years hence, when As now its strange swift shine Will fall on Yell'ham; but not then On that sweet form of thine. ========== From: "Patrick Roper" Subject: RE: All Things Bright and Beautiful Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 17:52:39 -0000 > The Leonids Meteor Shower tonight: It was too cold and cloudy for Leonids here in Sussex UK, so I contented myself with a couple of images from TH in addition to the poem posted by Betty and John Cortus: "Stephen had dutifully and warmly greeted his mother--who appeared in a cotton dress of a dark-blue ground, covered broadcast with a multitude of new and full moons, stars, and planets, with an occasional dash of a comet-like aspect to diversify the scene." From 'A Pair of Blue Eyes.' "He seemed to be passing through the universe of ideas like a comet-- erratic, inapprehensible, untraceable." From 'The Woodlanders' The expression 'covered broadcast' is interesting. Not something I think people would use today. I wonder if the sky was covered broadcast with Leonid meteors last night. Patrick Roper ========== From: Martin Ray Sender: enl090@abdn.ac.uk Subject: Re: RE: All Things Bright and Beautiful Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 09:40:43 +0000 (GMT) This figurative use of 'broadcast' as an adverb has only two citations in the OED, dated 1814 and 1876. As Patrick rightly says, it seems to have fallen out of use, if it ever fell into it. Martin Dr Martin Ray School of English and Film Studies University of Aberdeen Aberdeen AB24 2UB Scotland, UK m.ray@abdn.ac.uk Editor, Thomas Hardy Journal ==========