Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE STARS, by GEORGE CROLY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE STARS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Ye stars! Bright legions that,before all time
Last Line: Twas on that arch, graved on that brazen talisman.
Subject(s): Stars


YE stars! bright legions that, before all time,
Camp'd on yon plain of sapphire, what shall tell
Your burning myriads, but the eye of Him
Who bade through heaven your golden chariots wheel?
Yet who earthborn can see your hosts, nor feel
Immortal impulses -- Eternity?
What wonder if the o'erwrought soul should reel
With its own weight of thought, and the wild eye
See fate within your tracts of sleepless glory lie?

For ye behold the mightiest. From that steep
What ages have ye worshipp'd round your King?
Ye heard his trumpet sounded o'er the sleep
Of earth; -- ye heard the morning angels sing.
Upon that orb, now o'er me quivering,
The gaze of Adam fix'd from Paradise;
The wanderers of the deluge saw it spring
Above the mountain surge, and hail'd its rise
Lightning their lonely track with hope's celestial dyes.

On Calvary shot down that purple eye,
When, but the soldier and the sacrifice,
All were departed. -- Mount of Agony!
But Time's broad pinion, ere the giant dies,
Shall cloud your dome. -- Ye fruitage of the skies,
Your vineyard shall be shaken! -- From your urn
Censers of Heaven! no more shall glory rise,
Your incense to the Throne! -- The heavens shall burn:
For all your pomps are dust, and shall to dust return.

Yet look, ye living intellects. -- The trine
Of waning planets speaks it not decay?
Does Schedir's staff of diamond wave no sign?
Monarch of midnight, Sirius, shoots thy ray
Undimm'd, when thrones sublunar pass away?
Dreams! -- yet if e'er was graved in vigil wan
Your spell on gem or imaged alchemy,
The sign when empire's hour-glass downwards ran,
'Twas on that arch, graved on that brazen talisman.





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