O stars! as the flakes of a snowstorm
How ye fly and fall and drift!
Swift snowing of suns out of darkness,
Whirled by winds of force and whiffed!
Fly! fall! but the wind the Almighty
Still behind you always runs,
Still pushes you onward together,
Fixed each sun in drift of suns.
Fixed, ay, to the vision of mortal
Never change hath shown in you;
Lands, seas, and their kingdoms and races
All have changed, but ye are true--
Still true to the old constellations,
Such as when the forebrain first
Uplifted itself to their glories
With this human spirit's thirst.
Calm! still! though in every sparkle
Motions like the thunderbolt,
Wide whirlings of worlds in their sunlight,
Planet's wheel and comet's volt,
All hang, as it were, in a dewdrop
Frozen to a steadfast gleam;
Time, place, dwindled down to a glitter,
Whimseys of an instant's dream.
Drift! drift! all the universe drifting
Round some sun too vast for thought!
On! on! awful maelstrom of matter
Whirling in a gulf of naught!
Whirl! wheel! and my soul like a seabird
Flies across and dips and flees--
Wild wings of my soul, like the seabird's,
Tossed and lost upon the seas!