The Stars

They wait all day unseen by us, unfelt; Patient they bide behind the day’s full glare; And we, who watched the dawn when they were there, Thought we had seen them in the daylight melt, While the slow sun upon the earth-line knelt. Because the teeming sky seemed void and bare, When we explored it through the dazzled air, We had no thought that there all day they dwelt. Yet were they over us, alive and true, In the vast shades far up above the blue,— The brooding shades beyond our daylight ken,— Serene and patient in their conscious light, Ready to sparkle for our joy again,— The eternal jewels of the short-lived night.

Collection: 
English
Mary Mapes Dodge

More from Poet

  • Once Before

    Once before, this self-same air Passed me, though I know not where. Strange! how very like it came! Touch and fragrance were the same; Sound of mingled voices, too, With a light laugh ringing through; Some one moving,—here or there,— Some one passing up the stair, Some one calling from without,...

  • Snow-Flakes

    Whenever a snow-flake leaves the sky, It turns and turns to say “Good-bye! Good-bye, dear clouds, so cool and gray!” Then lightly travels on its way. And when a snow-flake finds a tree, “Good-day!” it says—“Good-day to thee! Thou art so bare, and lonely, dear, I ’ll rest and call my comrades...

  • The Two Mysteries

    [“In the middle of the room, in its white coffin, lay the dead child, the nephew of the poet. Near it, in a great chair, sat Walt Whitman, surrounded by little ones, and holding a beautiful little girl on his lap. She looked wonderingly at the spectacle of death, and then inquiringly into the...

  • Snowflakes

    Whenever a snowflake leaves the sky, It turns and turns to say “Good-by! Good-by, dear clouds, so cool and gray!” Then lightly travels on its way. And when a snowflake finds a tree, “Good-day!” it says—“Good-day to thee! Thou art so bare and lonely, dear, I ’ll rest and call my comrades here.”...

  • Shadow-Evidence

    Swift o’er the sunny grass, I saw a shadow pass With subtle charm,— So quick, so full of life, With thrilling joy so rife, I started lest, unknown, My step—ere it was flown— Had done it harm. Why look up to the blue? The bird was gone, I knew, Far out of sight. Steady and keen of...