Stars | Count the stars of heaven

Vast and free twirling round

gazing down on a breadth of seas

For ancients’ sake boulders quake

and spread their plume and fume

in pillows of magnetic blue.

All this time we knew you

a firm sphere of life

revolution all around you

and yet it is not all

who tremble as you shake,

lie in your wake.

We’re one and all reliant on

the One source.

These heavenly bodies

are not far from it.

Constancy in our distance,

we stay our path, in safety.

No freedom flier

but remain, obey, rely.

One solstice past

orbits merged

an emergency flight path.

We cannot wish to undo

or change our place

for all order that surrounds

and lies floating in chaotic wait

will unleash their quiet laden weight.

Best to gaze on star’s light from afar.

stargazingman

An infinite dome of sky was expanded above us

an ocean of firmament of which the dwellers among

houses and mountains can have but little conception.

The troops of glittering stars,

the dark, the shrouding night,

the unaccustomed voices of my companions,

deepened the awe that oppressed me, and,

as I stood between them, I became as earnest

and occupied as themselves.

I forgot everything but the incomprehensible grandeur

of the universe revealed to me,

and the majestic sweep of planets

across the field of the telescope.

What a freshness of awe and delight came over me!

What floods of thought came,

wave upon wave, across my mind!

And how insignificant I felt

before this wilderness of worlds!

Hesba Stretton – The Ghosts in the Clock Room in Charles Dickens’ tale ‘The Haunted House’.