Rising Universe
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Rising Universe, more commonly known locally as the Shelley Fountain, is a large modern water sculpture in Horsham, West Sussex, UK. It was built to commemorate the bicentenary of the birth of the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, who was born near Horsham.
The fountain and consists of a large globe mounted on a pillar which fills with water pumped from below. As the sphere fills, it descends slowly over a period of approximately five minutes, after which the water is released into the pool below, it quickly rises up, and the cycle starts over again. It was constructed by sculptor Angela Conner, who drew her inspiration from Shelley's 1817 poem Mont Blanc. An extract from this poem appears on a plaque on the sculpture:
The everlasting universe of things
Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves,
Now dark - now glittering - now reflecting gloom -
Now lending splendour, where from secret springs
The source of human thought its tribute brings
Of waters, - with a sound but half its own,
Such as a feeble brook will oft assume
In the wild woods, among the mountains lone,
Where waterfalls around it leap for ever,
Where woods and winds contend, and a vast river
Over its rocks ceaselessly bursts and raves.
Due to water shortages in the south of England, the fountain was switched off in the spring of 2006 to conserve water. Although the water is recycled, it loses 180 gallons of water a day to filtration and evaporation. It was switched on again in November 2006.
