Song of the Stars

Our nature is all the law we serve, From all but its own rapture free, And our long pathway’s limitless curve The gage of our immortality— The heavens revolve at our desire; we watch and journey on.

This mansion of the sense, hall Of idols shaped by mortal seeing, Mêlée of being and not being, Storm and surge of creation, all This realm of the hours swift winged or slow, we watch and journey on.

Battlefields that war’s flames have seared, Those lunacies of subtle wits, Thrones, diadems, and scaffolds reared For sovereigns on whom Fortune spits, All playthings of the ribald times, we watch and journey on.

The master from his seat deposed, The thrall set loose from slavery, The book of Tsar and Kaiser closed, Fierce Alexander’s day gone by, Image and image‐maker fled, we watch and journey on.

Man’s dust so still, so turbulent, Dwarfish of stature, giant in toil, Now loud in roistering, merriment, Now carried shoulder high, death’s spoil, Lord of the world and branded slave, we watch and journey on.

Like a gazelle the snare has caught, Quivering in misery and pain, You pant in the tangled web of thought, Your mind plunges and gropes in vain; From our high citadel of the skies we watch and journey on.

What is the curtain called the Apparent? Whence do our light and darkness flow, Or eye and heart and reason grow? What is this nature, restless, errant, This universe of Far and Near?—we watch and journey on

Your vast to us is little room, Your year our moment. You who hold An ocean in your breast, yet whom One dewdrop flatters!—onward rolled In search of worlds and other worlds, we watch and journey on.