[ { "title": "Before The Paling Of The Stars", "author": "Christina Rossetti", "lines": [ "Before the winter morn,", "Before the earliest cock crow,", "Jesus Christ was born:", "Born in a stable,", "Cradled in a manger,", "In the world his hands had made", "Born a stranger.", "", "Priest and king lay fast asleep", "In Jerusalem;", "Young and old lay fast asleep", "In crowded Bethlehem;", "Saint and angel, ox and ass,", "Kept a watch together", "Before the Christmas daybreak", "In the winter weather.", "", "Jesus on his mother's breast", "In the stable cold,", "Spotless lamb of God was he,", "Shepherd of the fold:", "Let us kneel with Mary maid,", "With Joseph bent and hoary,", "With saint and angel, ox and ass,", "To hail the King of Glory." ], "linecount": "23" }, { "title": "Stars", "author": "Emily Bronte", "lines": [ "Ah! why, because the dazzling sun", "Restored our Earth to joy,", "Have you departed, every one,", "And left a desert sky?", "", "All through the night, your glorious eyes", "Were gazing down in mine,", "And, with a full heart's thankful sighs,", "I blessed that watch divine.", "", "I was at peace, and drank your beams", "As they were life to me;", "And revelled in my changeful dreams,", "Like petrel on the sea.", "", "Thought followed thought, star followed star", "Through boundless regions on;", "While one sweet influence, near and far,", "Thrilled through, and proved us one!", "", "Why did the morning dawn to break", "So great, so pure a spell;", "And scorch with fire the tranquil cheek,", "Where your cool radiance fell?", "", "Blood-red, he rose, and arrow-straight,", "His fierce beams struck my brow;", "The soul of nature sprang, elate,", "But mine sank sad and low.", "", "My lids closed down, yet through their veil", "I saw him, blazinig, still,", "And steep in gold the misty dale,", "And flash upon the hill.", "", "I turned me to the pillow, then,", "To call back night, and see", "Your words of solemn light, again,", "Throb with my heart, and me!", "", "It would not do - the pillow glowed,", "And glowed both roof and floor;", "And birds sang loudly in the wood,", "And fresh winds shook the door;", "", "The curtains waved, the wakened flies", "Were murmuring round my room,", "Imprisoned there, till I should rise,", "And give them leave to roam.", "", "O stars, and dreams, and gentle night;", "O night and stars, return!", "And hide me from the hostile light", "That does not warm, but burn;", "", "That drains the blood of suffering men;", "Drinks tears, instead of dew;", "Let me sleep through his blinding reign,", "And only wake with you!" ], "linecount": "48" }, { "title": "Trusty as the stars", "author": "Emily Dickinson", "lines": [ "Trusty as the stars", "Who quit their shining working", "Prompt as when I lit them", "In Genesis' new house,", "Durable as dawn", "Whose antiquated blossom", "Makes a world's suspense", "Perish and rejoice." ], "linecount": "8" }, { "title": "The Stars are old, that stood for me --", "author": "Emily Dickinson", "lines": [ "The Stars are old, that stood for me --", "The West a little worn --", "Yet newer glows the only Gold", "I ever cared to earn --", "", "Presuming on that lone result", "Her infinite disdain", "But vanquished her with my defeat", "'Twas Victory was slain." ], "linecount": "8" }, { "title": "Meditation under Stars", "author": "George Meredith", "lines": [ "What links are ours with orbs that are", "So resolutely far:", "The solitary asks, and they", "Give radiance as from a shield:", "Still at the death of day,", "The seen, the unrevealed.", "Implacable they shine", "To us who would of Life obtain", "An answer for the life we strain", "To nourish with one sign.", "Nor can imagination throw", "The penetrative shaft: we pass", "The breath of thought, who would divine", "If haply they may grow", "As Earth; have our desire to know;", "If life comes there to grain from grass,", "And flowers like ours of toil and pain;", "Has passion to beat bar,", "Win space from cleaving brain;", "The mystic link attain,", "Whereby star holds on star.", "", "Those visible immortals beam", "Allurement to the dream:", "Ireful at human hungers brook", "No question in the look.", "For ever virgin to our sense,", "Remote they wane to gaze intense:", "Prolong it, and in ruthlessness they smite", "The beating heart behind the ball of sight:", "Till we conceive their heavens hoar,", "Those lights they raise but sparkles frore,", "And Earth, our blood-warm Earth, a shuddering prey", "To that frigidity of brainless ray.", "Yet space is given for breath of thought", "Beyond our bounds when musing: more", "When to that musing love is brought,", "And love is asked of love's wherefore.", "'Tis Earth's, her gift; else have we nought:", "Her gift, her secret, here our tie.", "And not with her and yonder sky?", "Bethink you: were it Earth alone", "Breeds love, would not her region be", "The sole delight and throne", "Of generous Deity?", "", "To deeper than this ball of sight", "Appeal the lustrous people of the night.", "Fronting yon shoreless, sown with fiery sails,", "It is our ravenous that quails,", "Flesh by its craven thirsts and fears distraught.", "The spirit leaps alight,", "Doubts not in them is he,", "The binder of his sheaves, the sane, the right:", "Of magnitude to magnitude is wrought,", "To feel it large of the great life they hold:", "In them to come, or vaster intervolved,", "The issues known in us, our unsolved solved:", "That there with toil Life climbs the self-same Tree,", "Whose roots enrichment have from ripeness dropped.", "So may we read and little find them cold:", "Let it but be the lord of Mind to guide", "Our eyes; no branch of Reason's growing lopped;", "Nor dreaming on a dream; but fortified", "By day to penetrate black midnight; see,", "Hear, feel, outside the senses; even that we,", "The specks of dust upon a mound of mould,", "We who reflect those rays, though low our place,", "To them are lastingly allied.", "", "So may we read, and little find them cold:", "Not frosty lamps illumining dead space,", "Not distant aliens, not senseless Powers.", "The fire is in them whereof we are born;", "The music of their motion may be ours.", "Spirit shall deem them beckoning Earth and voiced", "Sisterly to her, in her beams rejoiced.", "Of love, the grand impulsion, we behold", "The love that lends her grace", "Among the starry fold.", "Then at new flood of customary morn,", "Look at her through her showers,", "Her mists, her streaming gold,", "A wonder edges the familiar face:", "She wears no more that robe of printed hours;", "Half strange seems Earth, and sweeter than her flowers." ], "linecount": "83" }, { "title": "The Light of Stars", "author": "Henry Wadsworth Longfellow", "lines": [ "The night is come, but not too soon;", "And sinking silently,", "All silently, the little moon", "Drops down behind the sky.", "", "There is no light in earth or heaven", "But the cold light of stars;", "And the first watch of night is given", "To the red planet Mars.", "", "Is it the tender star of love?", "The star of love and dreams?", "O no! from that blue tent above,", "A hero's armor gleams.", "", "And earnest thoughts within me rise,", "When I behold afar,", "Suspended in the evening skies,", "The shield of that red star.", "", "O star of strength! I see thee stand", "And smile upon my pain;", "Thou beckonest with thy mailed hand,", "And I am strong again.", "", "Within my breast there is no light", "But the cold light of stars;", "I give the first watch of the night", "To the red planet Mars.", "", "The star of the unconquered will,", "He rises in my breast,", "Serene, and resolute, and still,", "And calm, and self-possessed.", "", "And thou, too, whosoe'er thou art,", "That readest this brief psalm,", "As one by one thy hopes depart,", "Be resolute and calm.", "", "O fear not in a world like this,", "And thou shalt know erelong,", "Know how sublime a thing it is", "To suffer and be strong." ], "linecount": "36" }, { "title": "Stars", "author": "Joyce Kilmer", "lines": [ "(For the Rev. James J. Daly, S. J.)", "", "Bright stars, yellow stars, flashing through the air,", "Are you errant strands of Lady Mary's hair?", "As she slits the cloudy veil and bends down through,", "Do you fall across her cheeks and over heaven too?", "Gay stars, little stars, you are little eyes,", "Eyes of baby angels playing in the skies.", "Now and then a winged child turns his merry face", "Down toward the spinning world -- what a funny place!", "Jesus Christ came from the Cross (Christ receive my soul!)", "In each perfect hand and foot there was a bloody hole.", "Four great iron spikes there were, red and never dry,", "Michael plucked them from the Cross and set them in the sky.", "Christ's Troop, Mary's Guard, God's own men,", "Draw your swords and strike at Hell and strike again.", "Every steel-born spark that flies where God's battles are,", "Flashes past the face of God, and is a star." ], "linecount": "17" }, { "title": "Sonnet XXVII: Oh! Ye Bright Stars", "author": "Robinson", "lines": [ "Oh! ye bright Stars! that on the Ebon fields", "Of Heav'n's empire, trembling seems to stand;", "'Till rosy morn unlocks her portal bland,", "Where the proud Sun his fiery banner wields!", "To flames, less fierce than mine, your lustre yields,", "And pow'rs more strong my countless tears command;", "Love strikes the feeling heart with ruthless hand,", "And only spares the breast which dullness shields!", "Since, then, capricious nature but bestows", "The fine affections of the soul, to prove", "A keener sense of desolating woes,", "Far, far from me the empty boast remove;", "If bliss from coldness, pain from passion flows,", "Ah! who would wish to feel, or learn to love?" ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Places among the stars", "author": "Stephen Crane", "lines": [ "Places among the stars,", "Soft gardens near the sun,", "Keep your distant beauty;", "Shed no beams upon my weak heart.", "Since she is here", "In a place of blackness,", "Not your golden days", "Nor your silver nights", "Can call me to you.", "Since she is here", "In a place of blackness,", "Here I stay and wait" ], "linecount": "12" }, { "title": "Sonnet 14: Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck", "author": "William Shakespeare", "lines": [ "Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck;", "And yet methinks I have astronomy,", "But not to tell of good or evil luck,", "Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons' quality;", "Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell,", "Pointing to each his thunder, rain and wind,", "Or say with princes if it shall go well", "By oft predict that I in heaven find:", "But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,", "And constant stars in them I read such art", "As 'Truth and beauty shall together thrive,", "If from thyself, to store thou wouldst convert';", " Or else of thee this I prognosticate:", " 'Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date.'" ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "Sonnet 25: Let those who are in favour with their stars", "author": "William Shakespeare", "lines": [ "Let those who are in favour with their stars", "Of public honour and proud titles boast,", "Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars", "Unlook'd for joy in that I honour most.", "Great princes' favourites their fair leaves spread", "But as the marigold at the sun's eye,", "And in themselves their pride lies buried,", "For at a frown they in their glory die.", "The painful warrior famoused for fight,", "After a thousand victories once foil'd,", "Is from the book of honour razed quite,", "And all the rest forgot for which he toil'd:", "Then happy I, that love and am belov'd,", "Where I may not remove nor be remov'd." ], "linecount": "14" }, { "title": "To Jane: 'The Keen Stars Were Twinkling'", "author": "Percy Bysshe Shelley", "lines": [ "The keen stars were twinkling,", "And the fair moon was rising among them,", "Dear Jane!", "The guitar was tinkling,", "But the notes were not sweet till you sung them", "Again.", "", "As the moon's soft splendour", "O'er the faint cold starlight of Heaven", "Is thrown,", "So your voice most tender", "To the strings without soul had then given", "Its own.", "", "The stars will awaken,", "Though the moon sleep a full hour later,", "To-night;", "No leaf will be shaken", "Whilst the dews of your melody scatter", "Delight.", "", "Though the sound overpowers,", "Sing again, with your dear voice revealing", "A tone", "Of some world far from ours,", "Where music and moonlight and feeling", "Are one." ], "linecount": "24" } ]