SONG OF THE STARS

Order is our very being;
Rapture for us is our moving
Our revolving with no stopping
Is for us life everlasting.
Each of us is Fortune’s darling.
So we watch things and move on.

This world of appearances,
Temple-house of images,
Battleground for all that is –
All each other’s enemies –
And Time’s odd priorities:
We watch all this and move on.

Nations’ armed hostilities,
Utter follies of the wise;
Crowns and thrones and stakes, the rise
And fall of ruling dynasties;
Time’s fantastic gimmickries –
We watch all this and move on.

Masters are no longer masters;
Slaves no longer are in halters;
Gone are all the Gzars and Kaisers,
All the conquering Alexanders;
Gone too are the idol-makers.
We watch all this and move on.

Silent and uproarious,
Lazy and industrious,
Sometimes quite hilarious,
And sometimes lugubrious,
Man, earth-lord, is slave to us.
We watch his ways and move on.

You caught in the magic circle
Of a world that is a riddle,
Willing victim of a double
Intellect, itself a puzzle;
We high up, free from all trouble:
We watch all this and move on.

Why this veiled and why that veilless?
What is light and what is darkness?
Eye and heart and conscious process?

Why is human nature restless?
What is distance and what nearness?
We think all this and move on.
What is much for you for us is
Little: for us your year passes
In an instant. O you with seas
In your bosom, why do you seize
Dewdrops? Conquer these vast spaces,
Where to new worlds we move on.