WHY THE STARS TWINKLE.
BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
When Eve had led her lord away,
And Cain had killed his brother,
The stars and flowers,—the poets say,—
Agreed with one another
To cheat the cunning tempter's art
And show the world its duty,
By keeping on its wicked heart
Their eyes of love and beauty.
A million sleepless lids, they say,
Will be at least a warning;
And so the flowers will watch by day,
The stars from eve to morning.
On hills and prairies, fields and lawn,
Their dewy eyes upturning,
The flowers still watch from reddening dawn
Till western skies are burning.
Alas! each hour of daylight tells
A tale of shame so crushing,
That some turn white as sea-bleached shells,
And some are always blushing.
And when the patient stars look down,
On all their light discovers,
The traitor's smile, the murderer's frown,
The lips of lying lovers,
They try to shut their saddening eyes
And in the vain endeavor
We see them twinkling in the skies,
And so—they wink,—forever.
—Taken from The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table.