STARS.
And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.—Genesis, i. 16.
Where wast thou when the morning stars sang together?—Job, xxxviii. 4, 7.
He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names.—Psalm cxlvii. 4.
Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem.
Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.—Matthew, ii. 1, 2.
Confusion heard His voice, and wild uproar
Stood ruled, stood vast infinitude confined;
Till, at His second bidding, darkness fled,
Light shone, and order from disorder sprung:
Swift to their several quarters hasted then
The cumbrous elements, Earth, Flood, Air, Fire;
And this ethereal quintessence of Heaven
Flew upward, spirited with various forms,
That rolled orbicular, and turned to stars
Numberless, as thou seest, and how they move:
Each had his place appointed, each his course.
Milton.
At His birth, a star
Unseen before in Heaven, proclaims Him come,
And guides the eastern sages, who inquire
His place, to offer incense, myrrh, and gold,
His place of birth, a solemn angel tells
To simple shepherds, keeping watch by night:
They gladly thither haste, and by a choir
Of squadroned angels, hear His carol sung:
A Virgin is His Mother, but His Sire,
The Power of the Most High.
Milton.
Child of the earth! oh, lift thy glance
To yon bright firmament’s expanse;
The glories of its realm explore,
And gaze, and wonder, and adore!
Doth it not speak to every sense,
The marvels of Omnipotence?
Seest thou not there the Almighty name
Inscribed in characters of flame?
Count o’er those lamps of quenchless light,
That sparkle through the shades of night;
Behold them!—can a mortal boast
To number that celestial host?
Mark well each little star, whose rays
In distant splendour meet thy gaze:
Each is a world by Him sustain’d
Who from eternity hath reign’d.
Each, kindled not for earth alone,
Hath circling planets of its own,
And beings whose existence springs
From Him, the all-powerful King of Kings.
Mrs. Hemans.
Ye stars! bright legions that before all time,
Camped on yon plain of sapphire, what shall tell
Your burning myriads, but the eye of Him,
Who bade thro’ heaven your golden chariots wheel,
Yet who earth-born 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 tracks of sleepless glory lie?
For ye behold the Mightiest. From that steep
What ages have ye worshipped round your King,
Ye heard his trumpet sounded o’er the deep
Of earth:—ye heard the morning angels sing.
Upon that orb now o’er me quivering,
The gaze of Adam fixed from Paradise?
The wanderers of the deluge saw it spring
Above the mountain’s surge, and hailed its rise,
Lighting 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 clime.—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.
Croly.
And ye, bright sisters, stars my dear companions,
Which with enamel deck Heaven’s azure field,
And to the heavenly lyre your steps adapting,
Knit and unknit your choruses harmonious,
Into your chain celestial introduced,
Ye shall direct mine eyes to that bright desert,
That view bewildering labyrinths of fire;
Your beams should teach me how to praise and show
Him whom ye seek, and whom, perhaps, ye see;
And merging in my breast his trembling brightness,
I should perceive in him all ye perceive.
Rev. W. Pulling, from Lamartine.
Ye quenchless stars! so eloquently bright,
Untroubled sentries of the shadowy night,
While half the world is lapp’d in downy dreams,
And round the lattice creep your midnight beams,
How sweet to gaze upon your placid eyes,
In lambent beauty looking from the skies.
R. Montgomery.
Stars, wherefore do ye rise?
To light thy spirit to the skies.
J. Montgomery.
When up to nightly skies we gaze,
Where stars pursue their endless ways,
We think we see, from earth’s low clod,
The wide and shining home of God.
’Tis vain to dream those tracts of space,
With all their worlds, approach His face:
One glory fills each wheeling ball—
One love has shaped and moved them all.
This earth, with all its dust and tears,
Is no less His than yonder spheres;
And rain-drops weak, and grains of sand,
Are stamped by His immediate hand.
John Sterling.
Yet as the stars, the holy stars of night,
Shine out when all is dark,
So would I, cheered by hopes more purely bright,
Tread still the thorny path, whose close is light;
If, but at last, the tossed and weary barque,
Gains the sure haven of her final rest.
Lucy Hooper.