John Quincy Adams, among his many talents, was also a prolific writer and poet. In honor of today’s total solar eclipse, I give you his sonnet, “To the Sun, Eclipsed” which was written in his diary immediately after a successful viewing in 1846.
(An earlier attempt at viewing the solar eclipse was done without protection and temporarily blinded him – so be careful out there! Even our smartest president was prone to make dangerous mistakes).
Source of the sonnet from the Massachusetts Historical Society:http://www.masshist.org/jqadiaries/php/doc?id=jqad45_539http://www.masshist.org/jqadiaries/php/doc?id=jqad45_540
Would such an educated, erudite person ever again be elected president? Gummidge’s Law: “The amount of expertise varies in inverse proportion to the number of statements understood by the general public.”
In his diary, JQA had a period after “rays”—but also after “birth,” where above it the tail of the “z” in “blaze” might make the period look like an exclamation point. He also spelled the one word “empirean,” with a period after “hearth” too. The most important spelling comes with his “unobscurable,” which has no hyphen and includes a “c” (http://www.masshist.org/jqadiaries/php/doc?id=jqad45_540 and the page before too). Many thanks to Mr. Carroll for digging this out! Marvelous research!
Brian Carroll creator over 6 years ago
John Quincy Adams, among his many talents, was also a prolific writer and poet. In honor of today’s total solar eclipse, I give you his sonnet, “To the Sun, Eclipsed” which was written in his diary immediately after a successful viewing in 1846.
(An earlier attempt at viewing the solar eclipse was done without protection and temporarily blinded him – so be careful out there! Even our smartest president was prone to make dangerous mistakes).
Source of the sonnet from the Massachusetts Historical Society:http://www.masshist.org/jqadiaries/php/doc?id=jqad45_539http://www.masshist.org/jqadiaries/php/doc?id=jqad45_540
emptc12 over 6 years ago
Would such an educated, erudite person ever again be elected president? Gummidge’s Law: “The amount of expertise varies in inverse proportion to the number of statements understood by the general public.”
Sadandconfused9 over 6 years ago
We had a president like that quite recently, but because he was black and made it look easy, no one wanted to admit to it.
Smitty over 6 years ago
I was sorting of hoping that Dick Nixon, still orbiting the Earth, would be the cause of the solar eclipse.
DJJG over 3 years ago
In his diary, JQA had a period after “rays”—but also after “birth,” where above it the tail of the “z” in “blaze” might make the period look like an exclamation point. He also spelled the one word “empirean,” with a period after “hearth” too. The most important spelling comes with his “unobscurable,” which has no hyphen and includes a “c” (http://www.masshist.org/jqadiaries/php/doc?id=jqad45_540 and the page before too). Many thanks to Mr. Carroll for digging this out! Marvelous research!