Explore "The Star" by Edith Nesbit on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I HAD a star to sing by, a beautiful star that led, / But when I sang of its splendour the world in its wisdom said: / "Sweet are your songs, yet the singer sings but in madness when / He hymns but stars unbeholden of us his fellows of men; / Glow-worms we see and marshlights; sing us sweet songs of those / For the guerdons we have to give you, laurel and gold and rose; / Or if you must sing of stars, unseen of your brother man, / Go, starve with your eyes on your vision; your star may save if it can!"
So I said, "If I starve and die I never again shall see / The glory, the high white radiance that hallows the world for me; / I will sing their songs, if it must be, and when I have golden store, / I will turn from the marsh and the glow-worms, and sing of my star once more. " / So I walked in the warm wet by-ways, not daring to lift my eyes / Lest love should drive me to singing my star supreme in the skies, / And the world cried out, "We will crown him, he sings of the lights that are, / Glories of marshlight and glow-worms, not visions vain of a star!"