Figure D14 SHORELINE

As Selene her orbit roundabout

Draws now down, now up, the oceans’ sides,

So does the Milky Way breathe in and out,

For galaxies, like planets, have their tides,

And on the littoral the Earth abides,

Rich with heavy atoms, in the lee

Where from the super-nova’s blast it hides:

In this pool of gas, life came to be,

Along the margins of an interstellar sea.