Venus in Transit
Captain Cook's epic voyage to the east coast of Australia began after he sailed to Tahiti in 1769 to view the transit of Venus. This celestial event, repeated today, 6 June, has inspired authors for years, particularly writers of fantasy fiction. Dominick Healy's 1943 novel, A Voyage to Venus, is available for readers online. In the literary stakes, Shirley Hazzard's prize-winning novel, The Transit of Venus, is probably the stand-out.
Poets too have been inspired by the phenomenon. Here is Stephen Edgar in 'The Transit of Venus', part of his sequence, 'Consume My Heart Away', published in Other Summers:
'I puzzle on and marvel at
The manner of her magic that
Does me this kindness:
To take my sight, yet leave me free
In my mind’s dazzled eye to see,
Despite my blindness ...'
Let us hope he did not look directly at the sun !
The transit itself can be viewed live via a stream from The University of Queensland's School of Mathematics and Physics.