The Silence of the Stars

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.