Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889
Hymn to the Stars
By Oliver William Bourne Peabody (1799–1848)A
In one eternal hour of prime;
Each rolling, burningly alone,
Through boundless space and countless time!
Ay, there ye shine—the golden dews
That pave the realms by seraphs trod,
There through yon echoing vault diffuse
The song of choral worlds to God.
Young Eden’s birthnight saw ye shine
On all her flowers and fountains first,
Yet sparkling from the hand divine;
Yes, bright as then ye smiled to catch
The music of a sphere so fair,
Ye hold your high immortal watch;
And gird your God’s pavilion there!
Time rots the diamond,—there ye roll,
In primal light, as if each star
Enshrined an everlasting soul!
And do they not—since yon bright throngs
One all-enlightening Spirit own,
Praised there by pure sidereal tongues,
Eternal, glorious, blessed, and lone?
Unfold awhile the shrouded past,
From all that is, to what has been,
The glance how rich, the range how vast!
The birth of time—the rise, the fall
Of empires, myriads, ages flown,
Thrones, cities, tongues, arts, worships—all
The things whose echoes are not gone.
His soul into your mystic reign;
Ye saw the adoring Sabian bend—
The living hills his mighty fane!
Beneath his blue and beaming sky
He worshipped at your lofty shrine,
And deemed he saw, with gifted eye,
The Godhead in his works divine.
The children of a mortal sire!
The storm, the bolt, the earthquake’s shock,
The red volcano’s cataract fire,
Drought, famine, plague, and flood, and flame,
All Nature’s ills (and Life’s worst woes),
Are naught to you—ye smile the same,
And scorn alike their dawn and close.
Of Him, whose spirit o’er us moves,
Beyond the clouds of grief and crime,
Still shining on the world he loves;
Nor is one scene to mortals given,
That more divides the soul and sod,
Than yon proud heraldry of heaven—
Yon burning blazonry of God!