The Stars
(to j. d.)
SESTINA
Stars in the sky, fold upon fold of stars!
And still beyond the stars those gulfs of air
Flecked soft and pale with milkier stars beyond,
Millions of miles above our dusky world:
Pale stars, whose light down the unplumbed abyss
Falls, ere it reach us, through a thousand years.
There was a God in the unwritten years
Who lit the flaming order of the stars:
Let there be Light! He said, and lo! the abyss
Grew live and tremulous with rustling air.
Grew bright with stars and moons, and each a world
Shining, a light to other worlds beyond.
O were you even as we, bright orbs beyond
Who shine and shed your glory all these years.
Not light, but smoke would fall from every world;
Smoke, black with human evil, black, O stars
With His neglect who lit the sparkling air;
But left within—unformed and void—the Abyss.
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