No silence is so grand and deep,
As the great silence of the stars,
Not even this ye name the “eternal sleep,”
The cold, white slumber the departed keep,
For the freed soul dissolves its icy bars,
Soaring in the jubilant song,
While yet the living weep.
But these high wanderers of the unruffled deep,
No crash of sudden thunder jars,
No wail of woe, nor shout of victor wrong,
Nor the loud dissonance of unholy wars
That make all earth Aceldama – oh, how long!
Over our heads their golden galleons wheel,
Obedient to no trumpet peal,
With only light for melody, and their play
Of mute, harmonious motion;
From that majestic ocean,
That rolls unfathomed flashing into spray,
Along the Milky Wary,
No sound assails unaided human ears,
Or stirs the holy hush,
Though for its pebbled shore
It has the blind worlds, and for waves the rush
Of constellations that th’ abysses hurl,
From deeper deeps than fancy dares explore –
Billows of glory that for all our years eem hanging on the curl,
Just whitening to their downfall! Evermore
An infinite silence with her golden wand
Touches, the pallid lips
Of the great mystery beyond,
Whence not a whisper to our longing slips
Nor any murmer the deep stillness mars.
O golden silence, can it be in vain,
Thou holdest there thy everlasting reign,
Throned on the fiery chariot of the stars,
With dust of nebulæ whirling in thy train?
Hast thou no soothing for our thunder-jars,
No peace to breathe upon our dismal wars,
Our sorrow, sin and pain?
Above us there, where round its sparkling track
Winds the great circle of the Zodiac,
Thy chariot wheel, O, queen of silent zones,
There, where Orion and the trampling steeds
Of red Boötes tread out burning gleeds
From floors of noiseless sapphire, with what tones
Ascend our petty angers to thy sphere?
How sound our whimpering griefs and weary moans,
Our bitter chidings and our mad debates,
And all the hum of our low hive that grates
On our own souls so harshly, as we hear?
Ah, kindly depths of ether, fluid glass,
No tone but light’s low melody can pass;
Well might we thank the tenderness that hides
Our loudest jargon in thy soundless tides –
The reticence of infinite space, that keeps
The secret of our madness, though heaven weeps.
O, sacred silence of God’s universe –
I gaze by night in thy mysterious deeps,
When even the loud earth on its axle sleeps,
And all the dissonant cries
That storm benignant skies,
Vanish in swoonings of th’ inconstant wind!
Sad Egypt’s death-groan; the vindictive curse
Of bruised and trampled Erin; sobs of woe
From hearts that long have suffered, more htan sinned;
The insolent vaunt of opulence; the low,
Deep mutterings from the abyss we hardly know,
Where hates are brooded and the wretched nurse
An eyeless vengeance; these and haply worse,
The plaudits that triumphant wrong
Wins from the heartless or the heedless throng,
Who drag for wealth and power their golden ears,
With all the horrible discords that devour
God’s primal harmony, are for one blest hour,
Lost in thy glimmering deeps, O, silence of the stars.
Then something more than speech,
And something subtler than the unspeakable sense,
In strains of wordless melody, comes to teach
The troubled heart a hope as high
As the blue dome thy star-lamps glorify;
A faith as deep as the abysses whence
Comets, those flame-haired prophets, rose to preach
Disaster to a world of sin.
Filled by thy quietude intense,
As more and more my vision is led in
To heaven and heavens beyond, unseen by day,
My soul has strength to say:
Yes, the sad earth shall win
Her place of peace amid the starry train.
God reigns on high, and this supernal calm
Is boundless adoration, the mute psalm
Of rhythmic worlds! He reigns, and He shall reign
On earth serenely as in realms above,
And every sound shall melt in songs of light and love.
The Silence of the Stars