Stars

The stars have fascinated poets for centuries. It is a fundamental, beautiful, and unexplored mystery. What we are able to see from Earth gives us no idea of it. The stars have played an enormous role throughout history. They have been grouped into constellations and used in astrology. The creators of the first calendars also drew their theories from the night sky. Poets beautifully and romantically describe these celestial decorations in these lines.

«A Fragment» by Oscar Wilde

Beautiful star with the crimson lips
And flagrant daffodil hair,
Come back, come back, in the shaking ships
O’er the much-overrated sea,
To the hearts that are sick for thee
With a woe worse than mal de mer-
O beautiful stars with the crimson lips
And the flagrant daffodil hair. –
O ship that shakes on the desolate sea,
Neath the flag of the wan White Star,
Thou bringest a brighter star with thee
From the land of the Philistine,
Where Niagara’s reckoned fine
And Tupper is popular-
O ship that shakes on the desolate sea,
Neath the flag of the wan White Star.

***

«A Song Of Eternity In Time» by Sidney Lanier

Once, at night, in the manor wood
My Love and I long silent stood,
Amazed that any heavens could
Decree to part us, bitterly repining.
My Love, in aimless love and grief,
Reached forth and drew aside a leaf
That just above us played the thief
And stole our starlight that for us was shining.

A star that had remarked her pain
Shone straightway down that leafy lane,
And wrought his image, mirror-plain,
Within a tear that on her lash hung gleaming.
“Thus Time,” I cried, “is but a tear
Some one hath wept ‘twixt hope and fear,
Yet in his little lucent sphere
Our star of stars, Eternity, is beaming.”

***

«A Star in a Stoneboat» by Robert Frost

Never tell me that not one star of all
That slip from heaven at night and softly fall
Has been picked up with stones to build a wall.

Some laborer found one faded and stone-cold,
And saving that its weight suggested gold
And tugged it from his first too certain hold,

He noticed nothing in it to remark.
He was not used to handling stars thrown dark
And lifeless from an interrupted arc.

He did not recognize in that smooth coal
The one thing palpable besides the soul
To penetrate the air in which we roll.

He did not see how like a flying thing
It brooded ant eggs, and bad one large wing,
One not so large for flying in a ring,

And a long Bird of Paradise’s tail
(Though these when not in use to fly and trail
It drew back in its body like a snail);

Nor know that be might move it from the spot—
The harm was done: from having been star-shot
The very nature of the soil was hot

And burning to yield flowers instead of grain,
Flowers fanned and not put out by all the rain
Poured on them by his prayers prayed in vain.

He moved it roughly with an iron bar,
He loaded an old stoneboat with the star
And not, as you might think, a flying car,

Such as even poets would admit perforce
More practical than Pegasus the horse
If it could put a star back in its course.

He dragged it through the plowed ground at a pace
But faintly reminiscent of the race
Of jostling rock in interstellar space.

It went for building stone, and I, as though
Commanded in a dream, forever go
To right the wrong that this should have been so.

Yet ask where else it could have gone as well,
I do not know—I cannot stop to tell:
He might have left it lying where it fell.

From following walls I never lift my eye,
Except at night to places in the sky
Where showers of charted meteors let fly.

Some may know what they seek in school and church,
And why they seek it there; for what I search
I must go measuring stone walls, perch on perch;

Sure that though not a star of death and birth,
So not to be compared, perhaps, in worth
To such resorts of life as Mars and Earth—

Though not, I say, a star of death and sin,
It yet has poles, and only needs a spin
To show its worldly nature and begin

To chafe and shuffle in my calloused palm
And run off in strange tangents with my arm,
As fish do with the line in first alarm.

Such as it is, it promises the prize
Of the one world complete in any size
That I am like to compass, fool or wise.

***

«Aeolian Harp» by William Allingham

O pale green sea,
With long, pale, purple clouds above –
What lies in me like weight of love ?
What dies in me
With utter grief, because there comes no sign
Through the sun-raying West, or the dim sea-line ?

O salted air,
Blown round the rocky headland still,
What calls me there from cove and hill?
What calls me fair
From thee, the first-born of the youthful night,
Or in the waves is coming through the dusk twilight ?

O yellow Star,
Quivering upon the rippling tide –
Sendest so far to one that sigh’d?
Bendest thou, Star,
Above, where the shadows of the dead have rest
And constant silence, with a message from the blest?

***

«Blue-Eyed Grass of May» by Annette Wynne

Star, high star, far in the blue,
I have stars more near than you,
Shining from the blue-eyed grass,
Peeping at me as I pass.

Star, high star, far in the blue,
I wish that I could pick you, too,
I know I’d love you better, star,
If you were not so high and far.

My little friendly stars are found
Right close to me upon the ground;
You shine all night, they shine all day-
They are the blue-eyed grass of May!

***

«Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art» by John Keats

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art—

         Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night

And watching, with eternal lids apart,

         Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite,

The moving waters at their priestlike task

         Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,

Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask

         Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—

No—yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,

         Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,

To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,

         Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,

Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,

And so live ever—or else swoon to death.

***

«Daisies» by Frank Dempster Sherman

At evening when I go to bed
I see the stars shine overhead;
They are the little daisies white
That dot the meadow of the Night.

And often while I’m dreaming so,
Across the sky the Moon will go;
It is a lady, sweet and fair,
Who comes to gather daisies there.

For, when at morning I arise,
There’s not a star left in the skies;
She’s picked them all and dropped them down
Into the meadows of the town.

***

«Evening Star» by William Blake

Thou fair hair’d angel of the evening,
Now, while the sun rests on the mountains light,
Thy bright torch of love; Thy radiant crown
Put on, and smile upon our evening bed!
Smile on our loves; and when thou drawest the
Blue curtains, scatter thy silver dew
On every flower that shuts its sweet eyes
In timely sleep. Let thy west wind sleep on
The lake; speak silence with thy glimmering eyes
And wash the dusk with silver. Soon, full, soon,
Dost thou withdraw; Then, the wolf rages wide,
And the lion glares thro’ the dun forest.
The fleece of our flocks are covered with
Thy sacred dew; Protect them with thine influence.

***

«Fall Of The Evening Star» by Kenneth Patchen

Speak softly; sun going down
Out of sight. Come near me now.

Dear dying fall of wings as birds
complain against the gathering dark…

Exaggerate the green blood in grass;
the music of leaves scraping space;

Multiply the stillness by one sound;
by one syllable of your name…

And all that is little is soon giant,
all that is rare grows in common beauty

To rest with my mouth on your mouth
as somewhere a star falls

And the earth takes it softly, in natural love…
Exactly as we take each other…
and go to sleep…

***

«From Sunset To Star Rise» by Christina Georgina Rossetti

Go from me, summer friends, and tarry not:
I am no summer friend, but wintry cold,
A silly sheep benighted from the fold,
A sluggard with a thorn-choked garden plot.
Take counsel, sever from my lot your lot,
Dwell in your pleasant places, hoard your gold;
Lest you with me should shiver on the wold,
Athirst and hungering on a barren spot.
For I have hedged me with a thorny hedge,
I live alone, I look to die alone:
Yet sometimes, when a wind sighs through the sedge,
Ghosts of my buried years, and friends come back,
My heart goes sighing after swallows flown
On sometime summer’s unreturning track.

***

«Go And Catch A Falling Star» by John Donne

Go and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the devil’s foot,
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy’s stinging,
And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind.
If thou be’st born to strange sights,
Things invisible to see,
Ride ten thousand days and nights,
Till age snow white hairs on thee,
Thou, when thou return’st, wilt tell me,
All strange wonders that befell thee,
And swear,
No where
Lives a woman true, and fair.
If thou find’st one, let me know,
Such a pilgrimage were sweet;
Yet do not, I would not go,
Though at next door we might meet;
Though she were true, when you met her,
And last, till you write your letter,
Yet she
Will be
False, ere I come, to two, or three.

***

«Hymn to the North Star» by William Cullen Bryant

The sad and solemn night
Has yet her multitude of cheerful fires;
The glorious host of light
Walk the dark hemisphere till she retires;
All through her silent watches, gliding slow,
Her constellations come, and climb the heavens, and go.

Day, too, hath many a star
To grace his gorgeous reign, as bright as they:
Through the blue fields afar,
Unseen, they follow in his flaming way:
Many a bright lingerer, as the eve grows dim,
Tells what a radiant troop arose and set with him.

And thou dost see them rise,
Star of the Pole! and thou dost see them set.
Alone, in thy cold skies,
Thou keep’st thy old unmoving station yet,
Nor join’st the dances of that glittering train,
Nor dipp’st thy virgin orb in the blue western main.

There, at morn’s rosy birth,
Thou lookest meekly through the kindling air,
And eve, that round the earth
Chases the day, beholds thee watching there;
There noontide finds thee, and the hour that calls
The shapes of polar flame to scale heaven’s azure walls.

Alike, beneath thine eye,
The deeds of darkness and of light are done;
High towards the star-lit sky
Towns blaze—the smoke of battle blots the sun—
The night-storm on a thousand hills is loud—
And the strong wind of day doth mingle sea and cloud.

On thy unaltering blaze
The half-wrecked mariner, his compass lost,
Fixes his steady gaze,
And steers, undoubting, to the friendly coast;
And they who stray in perilous wastes, by night,
Are glad when thou dost shine to guide their footsteps right.

And, therefore, bards of old,
Sages, and hermits of the solemn wood,
Did in thy beams behold
A beauteous type of that unchanging good,
That bright eternal beacon, by whose ray
The voyager of time should shape his heedful way.

***

«I Go Out On The Road Alone» by Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov

Alone I set out on the road;
The flinty path is sparkling in the mist;
The night is still. The desert harks to God,
And star with star converses.

The vault is overwhelmed with solemn wonder
The earth in cobalt aura sleeps. . .
Why do I feel so pained and troubled?
What do I harbor: hope, regrets?

I see no hope in years to come,
Have no regrets for things gone by.
All that I seek is peace and freedom!
To lose myself and sleep!

But not the frozen slumber of the grave…
I’d like eternal sleep to leave
My life force dozing in my breast
Gently with my breath to rise and fall;

By night and day, my hearing would be soothed
By voices sweet, singing to me of love.
And over me, forever green,
A dark oak tree would bend and rustle.

***

«Influence» by Emma Lazarus

The fervent, pale-faced Mother ere she sleep,
Looks out upon the zigzag-lighted square,
The beautiful bare trees, the blue night-air,
The revelation of the star-strewn deep,
World above world, and heaven over heaven.
Between the tree-tops and the skies, her sight
Rests on a steadfast, ruddy-shining light,
High in the tower, an earthly star of even.
Hers is the faith in saints’ and angels’ power,
And mediating love–she breathes a prayer
For yon tired watcher in the gray old tower.
He the shrewd, skeptic poet unaware
Feels comforted and stilled, and knows not whence
Falls this unwonted peace on heart and sense.

***

«It Isn’t Only Flakes That Fall» by Annette Wynne

It isn’t only flakes that fall
On the street and roof and all,
All the day and evening hours,
But white and shining stars and flowers.

A million, million tiny stars,
Dropping from the cloudy bars,
Falling softly all around,
On my sleeve and on the ground.

A million, million flowers white,
Falling softly day and night—
But not a leaf or stem at all—
It isn’t only flakes that fall.

***

«Japanese Lullaby» by Eugene Field

Sleep, little pigeon, and fold your wings,–
Little blue pigeon with velvet eyes;
Sleep to the singing of mother-bird swinging–
Swinging the nest where her little one lies.

Away out yonder I see a star,–
Silvery star with a tinkling song;
To the soft dew falling I hear it calling–
Calling and tinkling the night along.

In through the window a moonbeam comes,–
Little gold moonbeam with misty wings;
All silently creeping, it asks, “Is he sleeping–
Sleeping and dreaming while mother sings?”

Up from the sea there floats the sob
Of the waves that are breaking upon the shore,
As though they were groaning in anguish, and moaning–
Bemoaning the ship that shall come no more.

But sleep, little pigeon, and fold your wings,–
Little blue pigeon with mournful eyes;
Am I not singing?–see, I am swinging–
Swinging the nest where my darling lies.

***

«Love Lies Sleeping» by Elizabeth Bishop

Earliest morning, switching all the tracks
that cross the sky from cinder star to star,
coupling the ends of streets
to trains of light.

now draw us into daylight in our beds;
and clear away what presses on the brain:
put out the neon shapes
that float and swell and glare

down the gray avenue between the eyes
in pinks and yellows, letters and twitching signs.
Hang-over moons, wane, wane!
From the window I see

an immense city, carefully revealed,
made delicate by over-workmanship,
detail upon detail,
cornice upon facade,

reaching up so languidly up into
a weak white sky, it seems to waver there.
(Where it has slowly grown
in skies of water-glass

from fused beads of iron and copper crystals,
the little chemical “garden” in a jar
trembles and stands again,
pale blue, blue-green, and brick.)

The sparrows hurriedly begin their play.
Then, in the West, “Boom!” and a cloud of smoke.
“Boom!” and the exploding ball
of blossom blooms again.

(And all the employees who work in a plants
where such a sound says “Danger,” or once said “Death,”
turn in their sleep and feel
the short hairs bristling

on backs of necks.) The cloud of smoke moves off.
A shirt is taken of a threadlike clothes-line.
Along the street below
the water-wagon comes

throwing its hissing, snowy fan across
peelings and newspapers. The water dries
light-dry, dark-wet, the pattern
of the cool watermelon.

I hear the day-springs of the morning strike
from stony walls and halls and iron beds,
scattered or grouped cascades,
alarms for the expected:

queer cupids of all persons getting up,
whose evening meal they will prepare all day,
you will dine well
on his heart, on his, and his,

so send them about your business affectionately,
dragging in the streets their unique loves.
Scourge them with roses only,
be light as helium,

for always to one, or several, morning comes
whose head has fallen over the edge of his bed,
whose face is turned
so that the image of

the city grows down into his open eyes
inverted and distorted. No. I mean
distorted and revealed,
if he sees it at all.

***

«Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck» by William Shakespeare

Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck,
And yet methinks I have astronomy;
But not to tell of good or evil luck,
Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons’ quality;
Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell,
Pointing to each his thunder, rain, and wind,
Or say with princes if it shall go well
By oft predict that I in heaven find.
But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,
And, constant stars, in them I read such art
As truth and beauty shall together thrive
If from thyself to store thou wouldst convert:
Or else of thee this I prognosticate,
Thy end is truth’s and beauty’s doom and date.

***

«Song of the Stars» by William Cullen Bryant

When the radiant morn of creation broke,
And the world in the smile of God awoke,
And the empty realms of darkness and death
Were moved through their depths by his mighty breath,
And orbs of beauty and spheres of flame
From the void abyss by myriads came,—
In the joy of youth as they darted away,
Through the widening wastes of space to play,
Their silver voices in chorus rung,
And this was the song the bright ones sung.

“Away, away, through the wide, wide sky,—
The fair blue fields that before us lie,—
Each sun, with the worlds that round him roll,
Each planet, poised on her turning pole;
With her isles of green, and her clouds of white,
And her waters that lie like fluid light.

“For the source of glory uncovers his face,
And the brightness o’erflows unbounded space;
And we drink, as we go, the luminous tides
In our ruddy air and our blooming sides:
Lo, yonder the living splendours play;
Away, on our joyous path, away!

“Look, look, through our glittering ranks afar,
In the infinite azure, star after star,
How they brighten and bloom as they swiftly pass!
How the verdure runs o’er each rolling mass!
And the path of the gentle winds is seen,
Where the small waves dance, and the young woods lean.

“And see, where the brighter day-beams pour,
How the rainbows hang in the sunny shower;
And the morn and eve, with their pomp of hues,
Shift o’er the bright planets and shed their dews;
And ‘twixt them both, o’er the teeming ground,
With her shadowy cone the night goes round!

“Away, away! in our blossoming bowers,
In the soft air wrapping these spheres of ours,
In the seas and fountains that shine with morn,
See, Love is brooding, and Life is born,
And breathing myriads are breaking from night,
To rejoice like us, in motion and light.

“Glide on in your beauty, ye youthful spheres,
To weave the dance that measures the years;
Glide on, in the glory and gladness sent,
To the farthest wall of the firmament,—
The boundless visible smile of Him,
To the veil of whose brow your lamps are dim.”

***

«Star Light, Star Bright» by Dorothy Parker

Star, that gives a gracious dole,
What am I to choose?
Oh, will it be a shriven soul,
Or little buckled shoes?

Shall I wish a wedding-ring,
Bright and thin and round,
Or plead you send me covering-
A newly spaded mound?
Gentle beam, shall I implore
Gold, or sailing-ships,
Or beg I hate forevermore
A pair of lying lips?

Swing you low or high away,
Burn you hot or dim;
My only wish I dare not say-
Lest you should grant me him.

***

«Star Of My Heart» by Vachel Lindsay

Star of my heart, I follow from afar.
Sweet Love on high, lead on where shepherds are,
Where Time is not, and only dreamers are.
Star from of old, the Magi-Kings are dead
And a foolish Saxon seeks the manger-bed.
O lead me to Jehovah’s child
Across this dreamland lone and wild,
Then will I speak this prayer unsaid,
And kiss his little haloed head —
“My star and I, we love thee, little child.”

Except the Christ be born again to-night
In dreams of all men, saints and sons of shame,
The world will never see his kingdom bright.
Stars of all hearts, lead onward thro’ the night
Past death-black deserts, doubts without a name,
Past hills of pain and mountains of new sin
To that far sky where mystic births begin,
Where dreaming ears the angel-song shall win.
Our Christmas shall be rare at dawning there,
And each shall find his brother fair,
Like a little child within:
All hearts of the earth shall find new birth
And wake, no more to sin.

***

«Star of the east» by Eugene Field

Star of the East, that long ago
Brought wise men on their way
Where, angels singing to and fro,
The Child of Bethlehem lay–
Above that Syrian hill afar
Thou shinest out to-night, O Star!

Star of the East, the night were drear
But for the tender grace
That with thy glory comes to cheer
Earth’s loneliest, darkest place;
For by that charity we see
Where there is hope for all and me.

Star of the East! show us the way
In wisdom undefiled
To seek that manger out and lay
Our gifts before the child–
To bring our hearts and offer them
Unto our King in Bethlehem!

***

«Star Of The East» by Eugene Field

Star of the East, that long ago
Brought wise men on their way
Where, angels singing to and fro,
The Child of Bethlehem lay–
Above that Syrian hill afar
Thou shinest out to-night, O Star!

Star of the East, the night were drear
But for the tender grace
That with thy glory comes to cheer
Earth’s loneliest, darkest place;
For by that charity we see
Where there is hope for all and me.

Star of the East! show us the way
In wisdom undefiled
To seek that manger out and lay
Our gifts before the child–
To bring our hearts and offer them
Unto our King in Bethlehem!

***

«Starlight» by William Meredith

Going abruptly into a starry night

It is ignorance we blink from, dark, unhoused;

There is a gaze of animal delight

Before the human vision. Then, aroused

To nebulous danger, we may look for easy stars,

Orion and the Dipper; but they are not ours,

These learned fields. Dark and ignorant,

Unable to see here what our forebears saw,

We keep some fear of random firmament

Vestigial in us. And we think, Ah,

If I had lived then, when these stories were made up, I

Could have found more likely pictures in haphazard sky.

But this is not so. Indeed, we have proved fools

When it comes to myths and images. A few

Old bestiaries, pantheons and tools

Translated to the heavens years ago—

Scales and hunter, goat and horologe—are all

That save us when, time and again, our systems fall.

And what would we do, given a fresh sky

And our dearth of image? Our fears, our few beliefs

Do not have shapes. They are like that astral way

We have called milky, vague stars and star-reefs

That were shapeless even to the fecund eye of myth—

Surely these are no forms to start a zodiac with.

To keep the sky free of luxurious shapes

Is an occupation for most of us, the mind

Free of luxurious thoughts. If we choose to escape,

What venial constellations will unwind

Around a point of light, and then cannot be found

Another night or by another man or from other ground.

As for me, I would find faces there,

Or perhaps one face I have long taken for guide;

Far-fetched, maybe, like Cygnus, but as fair,

And a constellation anyone could read

Once it was pointed out; an enlightenment of night,

The way the pronoun you will turn dark verses bright.

***

«Stars» by Sara Teasdale

Alone in the night
On a dark hill
With pines around me
Spicy and still,

And a heaven full of stars
Over my head,
White and topaz
And misty red;

Myriads with beating
Hearts of fire
That aeons
Cannot vex or tire;

Up the dome of heaven
Like a great hill,
I watch them marching
Stately and still,

And I know that I
Am honored to be
Witness
Of so much majesty.

***

«Stars» by Emily Brontë

Ah! why, because the dazzling sun
Restored our Earth to joy,
Have you departed, every one,
And left a desert sky?

All through the night, your glorious eyes
Were gazing down in mine,
And, with a full heart’s thankful sighs,
I blessed that watch divine.

I was at peace, and drank your beams
As they were life to me;
And revelled in my changeful dreams,
Like petrel on the sea.

Thought followed thought, star followed star
Through boundless regions, on;
While one sweet influence, near and far,
Thrilled through, and proved us one!

Why did the morning dawn to break
So great, so pure, a spell;
And scorch with fire the tranquil cheek,
Where your cool radiance fell?

Blood-red, he rose, and, arrow-straight,
His fierce beams struck my brow;
The soul of nature sprang, elate,
But mine sank sad and low!

My lids closed down, yet through their veil
I saw him, blazing, still,
And steep in gold the misty dale,
And flash upon the hill.

I turned me to the pillow, then,
To call back night, and see
Your worlds of solemn light, again,
Throb with my heart, and me!

It would not do the pillow glowed,
And glowed both roof and floor;
And birds sang loudly in the wood,
And fresh winds shook the door;

The curtains waved, the wakened flies
Were murmuring round my room,
Imprisoned there, till I should rise,
And give them leave to roam.

Oh, stars, and dreams, and gentle night;
Oh, night and stars, return!
And hide me from the hostile light
That does not warm, but burn;

That drains the blood of suffering men;
Drinks tears, instead of dew;
Let me sleep through his blinding reign,
And only wake with you!

***

«Stars» by Robert Frost

How countlessly they congregate
O’er our tumultuous snow,
Which flows in shapes as tall as trees
When wintry winds do blow!–

As if with keeness for our fate,
Our faltering few steps on
To white rest, and a place of rest
Invisible at dawn,–

And yet with neither love nor hate,
Those starts like somw snow-white
Minerva’s snow-white marble eyes
Without the gift of sight.

***

«Stars and the Soul» by Henry Van Dyke

“Two things,” the wise man said, “fill me with awe:
The starry heavens and the moral law.”
Nay, add another wonder to thy roll, —
The living marvel of the human soul!

Born in the dust and cradled in the dark,
It feels the fire of an immortal spark,
And learns to read, with patient, searching eyes,
The splendid secret of the unconscious skies.

For God thought Light before He spoke the word;
The darkness understood not, though it heard:
But man looks up to where the planets swim,
And thinks God’s thoughts of glory after Him.

What knows the star that guides the sailor’s way,
Or lights the lover’s bower with liquid ray,
Of toil and passion, danger and distress,
Brave hope, true love, and utter faithfulness?

But human hearts that suffer good and ill,
And hold to virtue with a loyal will,
Adorn the law that rules our mortal strife
With star-surpassing victories of life.

So take our thanks, dear reader of the skies,
Devout astronomer, most humbly wise,
For lessons brighter than the stars can give,
And inward light that helps us all to live.

The world has brought the laurel-leaves to crown
The star-discoverer’s name with high renown;
Accept the flower of love we lay with these
For influence sweeter than the Pleiades!

***

«Sunset» by Rainer Maria Rilke

Slowly the west reaches for clothes of new colors
which it passes to a row of ancient trees.
You look, and soon these two worlds both leave you
one part climbs toward heaven, one sinks to earth.

leaving you, not really belonging to either,
not so hopelessly dark as that house that is silent,
not so unswervingly given to the eternal as that thing
that turns to a star each night and climbs-

leaving you (it is impossible to untangle the threads)
your own life, timid and standing high and growing,
so that, sometimes blocked in, sometimes reaching out,
one moment your life is a stone in you, and the next, a star.

***

«The Heart of Night» by Bliss Carman

When all the stars are sown
Across the night-blue space,
With the immense unknown,
In silence face to face.

We stand in speechless awe
While Beauty marches by,
And wonder at the Law
Which wears such majesty.

How small a thing is man
In all that world-sown vast,
That he should hope or plan
Or dream his dream could last!

O doubter of the light,
Confused by fear and wrong,
Lean on the heart of night
And let love make thee strong!

The Good that is the True
Is clothed with Beauty still.
Lo, in their tent of blue,
The stars above the hill!

***

«The Light of Stars» by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The night is come, but not too soon;
And sinking silently,
All silently, the little moon
Drops down behind the sky.

There is no light in earth or heaven
But the cold light of stars;
And the first watch of night is given
To the red planet Mars.

Is it the tender star of love?
The star of love and dreams?
Oh no! from that blue tent above,
A hero’s armour gleams.

And earnest thoughts within me rise,
When I behold afar,
Suspended in the evening skies,
The shield of that red star.

Oh star of strength! I see thee stand
And smile upon my pain;
Thou beckonest with thy mailed hand,
And I am strong again.

Within my breast there is no light
But the cold light of stars:
I give the first watch of the night
To the red planet Mars.

The star of the unconquer’d will,
He rises in my breast,
Serene, and resolute, and still,
And calm, and self-possess’d.

And thou, too, whosoe’er thou art,
That readest this brief psalm,
As one by one thy hopes depart,
Be resolute and calm.

Oh, fear not in a world like this,
And thou shalt know ere long,
Know how sublime a thing it is
To suffer and be strong.

***

«The Morning Star» by George William Russell

IN the black pool of the midnight Lu has slung the morning star,
And its foam in rippling silver whitens into day afar
Falling on the mountain rampart piled with pearl above our glen,
Only you and I, beloved, moving in the fields of men.


In the dark tarn of my spirit, love, the morning star, is lit;
And its halo, ever brightening, lightens into dawn in it.
Love, a pearl-grey dawn in darkness, breathing peace without desire;
But I fain would shun the burning terrors of the mid-day fire.


Through the faint and tender airs of twilight star on star may gaze,
But the eyes of light are blinded in the white flame of the days,
From the heat that melts together oft a rarer essence slips,
And our hearts may still be parted in the meeting of the lips.


What a darkness would I gaze on when the day had passed the west,
If my eyes were dazed and blinded by the whiteness of a breast?
Never through the diamond darkness could I hope to see afar
Where beyond the pearly rampart burned the purer evening star.

***

«The Star» by Hannah Flagg Gould

Ever beaming, still I hang,
Bright as when my birth I sang
From chaotic night,
In the boundless, azure dome
Where I’ve made my constant home,
Till thousand, thousand years have come
To sweep earth’s things from sight!

Mortals, I unchanging view
Every change that sports with you
On your shadowy ball.
All below my native skies,
Here I mark how soon it dies;
How your proudest empires rise,
Flourish, shake and fall!

Wealth and splendor, pomp and pride,
I’ve beheld you laid aside;
Love and hate forgot!
Fame, ambition, glory, power,
You I’ve seen enjoy your hour;
Beauty, withering, as a flower,
While I altered not!

Him, whose sceptre swayed the world,
I have seen aghast, and hurled
From his holy throne.
Monarch’s form and vassal’s clay
Turned to dust and swept away:
E’en to tell where once they lay,
I am left alone!

When I’ve been from age to age,
Questioned by the lettered sage
What a star might be,
I’ve answered not; for soon, I knew,
He’d have a clearer, nobler view,
And look the world of mysteries through
In vast eternity!

Mortals, since ye pass as dew,
Seize the promise made for you
Ere your day is o’er.
The righteous, says a page divine,
Are as the firmament to shine;
And like the stars, when I and mine
Are quenched to beam no more!

***

«The Star» by Jane Taylor

Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are,
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky.

When the blazing sun is set,
And the grass with dew is wet,
Then you show your little light,
Twinkle, twinkle, all the night.

Then the traveler in the dark
Thanks you for your tiny spark,
He could not see where to go
If you did not twinkle so.

In the dark blue sky you keep,
And often through my curtains peep,
For you never shut your eye
Till the sun is in the sky.

As your bright and tiny spark
Lights the traveler in the dark,
Though I know not what you are,
Twinkle, twinkle, little star.

***

«The Star» by Henry Vaughan

Whatever ’tis, whose beauty here below

Attracts thee thus and makes thee stream and flow,

And wind and curl, and wink and smile,

Shifting thy gate and guile;

Though thy close commerce nought at all imbars

My present search, for eagles eye not stars,

And still the lesser by the best

And highest good is blest;

Yet, seeing all things that subsist and be,

Have their commissions from divinity,

And teach us duty, I will see

What man may learn from thee.

First, I am sure, the subject so respected

Is well dispos’d, for bodies once infected,

Deprav’d, or dead, can have with thee

No hold, nor sympathy.

Next, there’s in it a restless, pure desire

And longing for thy bright and vital fire,

Desire that never will be quench’d,

Nor can be writh’d, nor wrench’d.

These are the magnets which so strongly move

And work all night upon thy light and love,

As beauteous shapes, we know not why,

Command and guide the eye.

For where desire, celestial, pure desire

Hath taken root, and grows, and doth not tire,

There God a commerce states, and sheds

His secret on their heads.

This is the heart he craves, and who so will

But give it him, and grudge not, he shall feel

That God is true, as herbs unseen

Put on their youth and green.

***

«The Star and the Water Lily» by Oliver Wendell Holmes

The sun stepped down from his golden throne.
And lay in the silent sea,
And the lily had folded her satin leaves,
For a sleepy thing was she;
What is the Lily dreaming of?
Why crisp the waters blue?
See, see, she is lifting her varnished lid!
Her white leaves are glistening through!

The Rose is cooling his burning cheek
In the lap of the breathless tide;—
The Lily hath sisters fresh and fair,
That would lie by the Rose’s side;
He would love her better than all the rest,
And he would be fond and true;—
But the Lily unfolded her weary lids,
And looked at the sky so blue.

Remember, remember, thou silly one,
How fast will thy summer glide,
And wilt thou wither a virgin pale,
Or flourish a blooming bride?
“O the Rose is old, and thorny, and cold,
And he lives on earth,” said she;
“But the Star is fair and he lives in the air,
And he shall my bridegroom be.”

But what if the stormy cloud should come,
And ruffle the silver sea?
Would he turn his eye from the distant sky,
To smile on a thing like thee?
O no, fair Lily, he will not send
One ray from his far-off throne;
The winds shall blow and the waves shall flow,
And thou will be left alone.

There is not a leaf on the mountain top,
Nor a drop of evening dew,
Nor a golden sand on the sparkling shore,
Nor a pearl in the waters blue,
That he has not cheered with his fickle smile,
And warmed with his faithless beam,—
And will he be true to a pallid flower,
That floats on the quiet stream?

Alas for the Lily! she would not heed,
But turned to the skies afar,
And bared her breast to the trembling ray
That shot from the rising star;
The cloud came over the darkened sky,
And over the waters wide:
She looked in vain through the beating rain,
And sank in the stormy tide.

***

«The Stars Above the Sea» by Amos Russel Wells

Far, far away one mystery greets
Another vast and high,
The infinite of waters meets
The infinite of sky.

The stars are singing hymns of calm
Above the sea’s unrest;
Can ever that majestic psalm
Dwell in the ocean’s breast?

What far horizon dim and low
The sweet solution finds,
Where earth’s tumultuous yearnings know
The peace of heavenly minds?

And still the sky’s imperial grace
The tossing ocean mars;
We cannot see the meeting place,
But we can see the stars.

***

«The Stars and the Falling Dew» by Hannah Flagg Gould

The sun, like a hero, whose chariot rolled
In glory, has reached the west;
And wrapped in his mantle of crimson and gold,
Has sunken away to rest.
The stars from the skies
Look forth like the eyes
Of Angels, the earth to view;
While timid and soft,
Their light form aloft,
Comes down with the falling dew.

The flowers, that, oppressed by the monarch of day,
Have bowing confessed his power,
Are lifting their foreheads, relieved of his ray,
To the cool of the evening hour.
And each holding up
Her emerald cup,
Her delicate draught to renew,
Their trust is repaid,
While their thirst is allayed
By the drops of the falling dew.

The birds are at rest in their own little homes,
Their songs are forgotten in sleep;
And low and uncertain the murmuring comes
From over the slumbering deep.
The breezes that sighed
Have fainted and died
In the boughs they were quivering through,
And motion and sound
Have ceased from around
To yield to the falling dew.

And gently it comes, as the shadowy wing
Of night o’er the earth is unfurled;
A silent, refreshing and spirit-like thing,
To brighten and solace the world!
As the face of a friend.
When in sorrow we bend—
Like a heart ever tender and true,
When darkness is ours,
To the earth and the flowers,
Are the stars and the falling dew.

***

«The Twelfth Night Star» by Bliss Carman

It is the bitter time of year
When iron is the ground,
With hasp and sheathing of black ice
The forest lakes are bound,
The world lies snugly under snow,
Asleep without a sound.

All the night long in trooping squares
The sentry stars go by,
The silent and unwearying hosts
That bear man company,
And with their pure enkindling fires
Keep vigils lone and high.

Through the dead hours before the dawn,
When the frost snaps the sill,
From chestnut-wooded ridge to sea
The earth lies dark and still,
Till one great silver planet shines
Above the eastern hill.

It is the star of Gabriel,
The herald of the Word
In days when messengers of God
With sons of men conferred,
Who brought the tidings of great joy
The watching shepherds heard;

The mystic light that moved to lead
The wise of long ago,
Out of the great East where they dreamed
Of truths they could not know,
To seek some good that should assuage
The world’s most ancient woe.

O well, believe, they loved their dream,
Those children of the star,
Who saw the light and followed it,
Prophetical, afar, —
Brave Gaspar, clear-eyed Melchior,
And eager Balthasar.

Another year slips to the void,
And still with omen bright
Above the sleeping doubting world
The day-star is alight, —
The waking signal flashed of old
In the blue Syrian night.

But who are now as wise as they
Whose faith could read the sign
Of the three gifts that shall suffice
To honor the divine,
And show the tread of common life
Ineffably benign?

Whoever wakens on a day
Happy to know and be,
To enjoy the air, to love his kind,
To labor, to be free,—
Already his enraptured soul
Lives in eternity.

For him with every rising sun
The year begins anew;
The fertile earth receives her lord,
And prophecy comes true,
Wondrously as a fall of snow,
Dear as a drench of dew.

Who gives his life for beauty’s need,
King Gaspar could no more;
Who serves the truth with single mind
Shall stand with Melchior;
And love is all that Balthasar
In crested censer bore.

***

«To A Much Too Unfortunate Lady» by Dorothy Parker

He will love you presently
If you be the way you be.
Send your heart a-skittering.
He will stoop, and lift the thing.
Be your dreams as thread, to tease
Into patterns he shall please.
Let him see your passion is
Ever tenderer than his….
Go and bless your star above,
Thus are you, and thus is Love.

He will leave you white with woe,
If you go the way you go.
If your dreams were thread to weave
He will pluck them from his sleeve.
If your heart had come to rest,
He will flick it from his breast.
Tender though the love he bore,
You had loved a little more….
Lady, go and curse your star,
Thus Love is, and thus you are.

***

«To a Star» by Lucretia Maria Davidson

Thou brightly-glittering star of even,
Thou gem upon the brow of Heaven
Oh! were this fluttering spirit free,
How quick ‘t would spread its wings to thee.

How calmly, brightly dost thou shine,
Like the pure lamp in Virtue’s shrine!
Sure the fair world which thou may’st boast
Was never ransomed, never lost.

There, beings pure as Heaven’s own air,
Their hopes, their joys together share;
While hovering angels touch the string,
And seraphs spread the sheltering wing.

There cloudless days and brilliant nights,
Illumed by Heaven’s refulgent lights;
There seasons, years, unnoticed roll,
And unregretted by the soul.

Thou little sparkling star of even,
Thou gem upon an azure Heaven,
How swiftly will I soar to thee,
When this imprisoned soul is free!

***

«To the Stars» by William B. Tappan

Fair stars! upon the brow of night
Ye look, from yonder fields of blue,
Where ye, ‘mid melody of light,
Bright wheeling worlds! your way pursue.

Ye never tire,–pure diadems,
The marshalled sentinels on high,
Ye shine, and ever shine, the gems
That fringe the curtain of the sky.

Minstrels are ye–your early song
Followed the Voice Ompnipotent,
When light and music flowed along
Over the spangled firmament.

Ye stars! if aught ’tis yours to know,
Beyond your own returnless bourne,
With pity have ye not below
Glanced on these vales where mortals mourn?

O, as I scan your nightly march,
Your anthems steal upon mine ears;
As sprinkled o’er yon glittering arch,
Ye wake the music of the spheres.

‘Tis fancy!–yet the empyrean strains
Impart kind gilead to my breast;
They tell of brighter, fairer plains,
Where troubles cease, where pilgrims rest.

***

«Under the Stars» by William Stanley Braithwaite

I take my soul in my hand,
I give it, a bounding ball
(Over Love’s sea and land),
For you to toss and let fall
At command.

Dear, as we sit here together —
Silence and alternate speech,
Dreams that are loose from the tether,
Stars in an infinite reach
Of dark ether:

Over and under and through
Silence and stars and the dreams,
How my emotions pursue,
With a still passion that teems
Full of you.

O what can the stars desire,
And what can the night fulfil,
Of a thousand thoughts on fire
That burns on my soul’s high hill
Like a pyre.

Does the flame leap upward, Where
God feels — and heat makes human,
Pity, in His heart —a snare
To win worship for a woman
Unaware?

If He made all Time for this,
O beloved, shall we not dare
To crown His dream with a kiss,
While each new-born star makes fair
Night’s abyss?

***

«When The Shy Star Goes Forth In Heaven» by James Joyce

When the shy star goes forth in heaven
All maidenly, disconsolate,
Hear you amid the drowsy even
One who is singing by your gate.
His song is softer than the dew
And he is come to visit you.

O bend no more in revery
When he at eventide is calling.
Nor muse: Who may this singer be
Whose song about my heart is falling?
Know you by this, the lover’s chant,
‘Tis I that am your visitant.