Poems (Toke)/The stars

by Emma Toke

THE STARS.

H! see another world roll slowly on?
Oh! can it be that yon faint sparkling orb
Is some vast globe like this, some circling sphere,
From chaos called to be the glad abode
Of living, breathing millions? framed perchance
With all that most delights or thrills the heart
In Nature's wonders; mountain heights sublime,
The waving forest, and the rushing stream;
Each scene of calm repose or awful power,
Which here enchants the eye, or lifts the soul
To commune with Eternity, and feel
The nothingness of man compared to Him
Who framed them all? Oh, wondrous thought, to feel
Yon trembling spark upon the midnight sky—
Yon star—contains the same. Nor it alone,
For lo! fast starting from the dark blue depths
Of ether's boundless sea, unnumbered orbs
Now brightly cluster o'er the brow of Night,
And gem her dark expanse with drops of gold,—
Worlds rise on worlds. What human eye can scan,
What finite mind can grasp the wondrous whole?
Yet there they shine,—and countless as the tears
Which Evening weeps upon the glistening plain,
Unceasing tread their viewless paths on high,
And seem to bid the vainly searching mind,
Which strives to reach their height, still higher rise,
And view the Wondrous Hand which formed them all.

Ye countless orbs! ye sparkling isles of light!
Perchance the glad abodes of peace and rest,
Where blessed spirits glide o'er crystal paths,
And tune their harps to ceaseless songs of praise;
Or else In sweet repose await the hour
When they, returned to earth, shall join once more
The forms wherein they tabernacled here—
The fleshly forms so dear to mortal eye,
Then purified from earth and all its stains,
Then raised again in heavenly lustre fair,
To meet their coming Lord:—oh, who can gaze
On ye, bright watchers of the silent night,
Nor feel the spark of Heaven's immortal fire
Which sleeps within him, kindle at your beam,
And bear his glowing spirit far away
From earth-born scenes, to roam through fields of space,
And soar from world to world—till, 'wildered, lost
Amid the wondrous works of Nature's God,
He turns again to earth, and feels at once
A worm,—and yet, a never-dying soul.

And when the sated eye descends once more
To rest upon the starlit plains of earth,
Oh, fair the scene which meets that raptured gaze;
So still and calm the slumbering world appears,
No fraught with breathing beauty. All is peace:
No sound of life now breaks the deep repose,
No gentle breeze with whispering murmur stirs
Yon foliage, glistening with the dews of night.
And earth and sky alike are hushed to rest;
While mirrored on the water's waveless breast,
Like dreams of fancy bright, but fading still,
The gemlike stars in mimic beauty shine.
It is an hour to calm the troubled heart,
To shed its own deep stillness o'er the soul,
And fill the breast with Nature's deep repose:
For all looks fair beneath the dim, soft light,
Which o'er the world in mellowed lustre falls,
From yonder countless lamps of living fire.

I love your gentle light, ye mystic orbs;
It clothes with tenfold beauty every charm,
Yet casts in shade each spot which seemed by day
To mar the prospect, or deface the scene.
How like that light the beam which memory sheds
On those dear forms of life—once glad and gay,
And loved, perchance, foo fondly loved while here,—
Now sleeping low to wake on earth no more!
Their sun hath set, their day is quenched in night,—
But oh! that starlight radiance still illumes
Their earthly course with melancholy beam,
And lights again their chequered path below;
Clothes every long-loved grace with richer hue,
O'er every beauty flings a deeper charm,
But fondly casts oblivion's shadowy veil
O'er each light spot, which still, alas! must stain
Earth's best and dearest. All which once she blamed,
Affection now forgets. Her lost ones sleep,
Lovely in life, in death more lovely still.

E.

October 17, 1834.