Those who are most concerned with philosophy and the heavens are dearest to her. Those who have been instructed by her she raises aloft to heaven, for it is a fact that imagination and the power of thought lift men’s souls to heavenly heights.
- Urania, o’er her star-bespangled lyre,
- With touch of majesty diffused her soul;
- A thousand tones, that in the breast inspire,
- Exalted feelings, o er the wires’gan roll—
- How at the call of Jove the mist unfurled,
- And o’er the swelling vault—the glowing sky,
- The new-born stars hung out their lamps on high,
- And rolled their mighty orbs to music’s sweetest sound.
- —From An Ode To Music by James G. Percival
During the Renaissance, Urania began to be considered the Muse for Christian poets. In the invocation to Book 7 of Milton’s Paradise Lost, the poet invokes Urania to aid his narration of the creation of the cosmos, though he cautions that it is “[t]he meaning, not the name I call” (7.5)