University of Virginia Library

FINALE.

CHORUS OF STARS.

Heir of eternity, mother of souls,
Let not thy knowledge betray thee to folly!
Knowledge is proud, self-sufficient, and lone,
Trusting, unguided, its steps in the darkness.
Thine is the learning that mankind may win,
Gleaned in the pathway between joy and sorrow;
Ours is the wisdom that hallows the child,
Fresh from the touch of his awful Creator,
Dropped, like a star, on thy shadowy realm,
Falling in splendor, but falling to darken.
Ours is the simple religion of faith,
The wisdom of trust in God who o'errules us;
Thine is the complex misgivings of thought,
Wrested to form by imperious reason.
We are forever pursuing the light;
Thou art forever astray in the darkness.
Knowledge is restless, imperfect, and sad;
Faith is serene, and completed, and joyful.
Chide not the planets that rule o'er thy ways;
They are God's creatures; nor, proud in thy reason,
Vaunt that thou knowest His counsels and Him.—
Boaster, though sitting in midst of the glory,
Thou couldst not fathom the least of His thoughts
Bow in humility, bow thy proud forehead,
Circle thy form in a mantle of clouds,
Hide from the glittering cohorts of evening,
Wheeling in purity, singing in chorus;
Howl in the depths of thy lone, barren mountains,
Restlessly moan on the deserts of ocean,
Wail o'er thy fall in the desolate forests,
Lost star of paradise, straying alone!