wo 
The Star that Shone 
Reuse the dazzling of that g glare terrene, 
Which but my weaker yision did annoy, : 
The eternal lamps that ) er my pensive bower, : 
In distance from the city’ s fretful stour, 
Had hung so glorious through the yestere’ en, em 
Intent I gaz’d. But no accustom’d ray 
Of nnight-consoling, azure there was seen; 
Though the soft air, with genial breath serene, 
Signall’d nor cloud, nor mist, that, should obscure , , 
The wakeful eye of heay’n, “All, all on high ta 
Was Stygian gloom—as though ee out the sky, 
The vangquish’d stars had fall’n, and lent their rays, 
That should through ever-changing time endure, 
Subseryient to that earth-engender’d blaze 
That warr’d on Nature’s light :—all, but one pure—— 
One bright ethereal guide—one star of stars, ' 
That (as with emanation more divine keh 
His Jamp were fed) continu’d stillto shine, , : 
And his essential splendour scorn’d to, veil,— aires 
Though round he saw the lesser suns turn pale, , 
And merge the lustre of their burnish’d cars _ | 
In adventitious beams. ah ; 
Entrane’d I gaz’d et 
Those earth-born stars around unnotic’d blag’ Gee or j 
Thought-dimm’d; and on the mental eye alone . 
That isolated beam of glory shone, 
Keeping the pauseless tenour of its way,— 4 
Vicegerent of an else-extinguish’d zone; _ 
As only to the eternal font of day, 4 
When HE should re-assert his glorious throne, 
The tribute of its homage it could pay,— 
Or mingle but with Meas like its own. : 
I gaz’d, and gaz’d, till thought began to climb, 
andl with that solitary star to stray ; r 
Communing with the attribute sublime, 
Which its ethereal progress would not stay 
For those false glares, that, in our mole-weak eyes, 
Eclipse the lustrous virtues of the skies, 
And make heaven’s concave dark; when from that beam 
A voice—or emanation that might seem, 
To the tense-listening heatt, an in-voic’d stream 
Of more than mortal colloquy, there came :— 
A music of the spheres! 
“And marvell’st thou—” 
So spake that yoice—“ and strain’st thy vauiting brow, 
As in the rapture of some waking dream, 
To the crystalline arch, there to descry 
My seeming lonely path ?—as it were strange 
To mortal sense, that the seraphic eye 
Its uncontaminate lustre Should not change, 
Nor blench the life of heaven’s eternal flame ; f 
But the brief tapers of earth’s pomp defy ; " 
And, midst the semblant darkness, still the same_ 
Fix’d course pursue, as when, distinct and clear, 
