Explore "The Stars in Their Courses" by Various on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
And now, while the dark vast earth shakes and rocks / In this wild dreamlike snare of mortal shocks, / How look (I muse) those cold and solitary stars / On these magnificent, cruel wars? -- / Venus, that brushes with her shining lips / (Surely!) the wakeful edge of the world and mocks / With hers its all ungentle wantonness? -- / Or the large moon (pricked by the spars of ships / Creeping and creeping in their restlessness), / The moon pouring strange light on things more strange, / Looks she unheedfully on seas and lands / Trembling with change and fear of counterchange?
O, not earth trembles, but the stars, the stars! / The sky is shaken and the cool air is quivering. / I cannot look up to the crowded height / And see the fair stars trembling in their light, / For thinking of the starlike spirits of men / Crowding the earth and with great passion quivering: / Stars quenched in anger and hate, stars sick with pity. / I cannot look up to the naked skies / Because a sorrow on dark midnight lies, / Death, on the living world of sense; / Because on my own land a shadow lies / That may not rise; / Because from bare grey hillside and rich city / Streams of uncomprehending sadness pour, / Thwarting the eager spirit's pure intelligence. / How look (I muse) those cold and solitary stars / On these magnificent, cruel wars?