THE IDEAS OF THE PURE REASON

I saw in dreams a constellation strange,

Thwarting the night; its big stars seemed to range

Northward across the zenith, and to keep

Calm footing along heaven's ridge-pole high,

While round the pole the sullen Bear did creep

And dizzily the wheeling spheres went by.

They from their watch-towers in the topmost sky

Looked down upon the rest,

Nor eastward swerved nor west,

Though Procyon's candle dipped below the verge,

And the great twins of Leda‘ gan decline

Toward the horizon line,

And prone Orion, sprawling headlong, urge

His flight into the far Pacific surge.

I heard a voice which said: “Those wonders bright

Are hung not on the hinges of the night;

But set to vaster harmonies, they run

Straight on, and turn not with the turning sphere,

Nor make an orbit about any sun.

No glass can track the courses that they steer,

By what dark paths they vanish and appear.

The starry flocks that still

Are climbing heaven's hill

Will pasture westward down its sloping lawn;

But yon wild herd of planets,— who can say

Through what far fields they stray,

Around what focus their ellipse is drawn,

Whose shining makes their transcendental dawn?”

I told my vision to a learned man,

Who said: “On no celestial globe or plan

Can those unset, unrisen stars be found.

How might such uncomputed motions be

Among the ordered spheres? Heaven's clock is wound

To keep one time. Idle our dreams, and we,

Blown by the wind, as the light family

Of leaves.” But still I dream,

And still those planets seem

Through heaven their high, unbending course to take;

And a voice cries: “Freedom and Truth are we,

And Immortality:

God is our sun.” And though the morning break,

Across my soul still plays their shimmering wake.