Astrophel

I.

A star in the silence that followsThe song of the death of the sunSpeaks music in heaven, and the hollowsAnd heights of the world are as one;One lyre that outsings and outlightensThe rapture of sunset, and thrillsMute night till the sense of it brightensThe soul that it fills.

The flowers of the sun that is sunkenHang heavy of heart as of head;The bees that have eaten and drunkenThe soul of their sweetness are fled;But a sunflower of song, on whose honeyMy spirit has fed as a bee,Makes sunnier than morning was sunnyThe twilight for me.

The letters and lines on the pagesThat sundered mine eyes and the flowersWax faint as the shadows of agesThat sunder their season and ours;As the ghosts of the centuries that severA season of colourless timeFrom the days whose remembrance is ever,As they were, sublime.

The season that bred and that cherishedThe soul that I commune with yet,

Had it utterly withered and perishedTo rise not again as it set,Shame were it that Englishmen livingShould read as their forefathers readThe books of the praise and thanksgivingOf Englishmen dead.

O light of the land that adored theeAnd kindled thy soul with her breath,Whose life, such as fate would afford thee,Was lovelier than aught but thy death,By what name, could thy lovers but know it,Might love of thee hail thee afar,Philisides, Astrophel, poetWhose love was thy star?

A star in the moondawn of Maytime,A star in the cloudland of change;Too splendid and sad for the daytimeTo cheer or eclipse or estrange;

Too sweet for tradition or visionTo see but through shadows of tearsRise deathless across the divisionOf measureless years.

The twilight may deepen and hardenAs nightward the stream of it runsTill starshine transfigure a gardenWhose radiance responds to the sun's:The light of the love of thee darkensThe lights that arise and that set:The love that forgets thee not hearkensIf England forget.

II.

Bright and brief in the sight of grief and love the lightof thy lifetime shone,Seen and felt by the gifts it dealt, the grace it gave, andagain was gone:

Ay, but now it is death, not thou, whom time hasconquered as years pass on.

Ay, not yet may the land forget that bore and loved theeand praised and wept,Sidney, lord of the stainless sword, the name of namesthat her heart's love keptFast as thine did her own, a sign to light thy life till itsank and slept.

Bright as then for the souls of men thy brave Arcadiaresounds and shines,Lit with love that beholds above all joys and sorrowsthe steadfast signs,Faith, a splendour that hope makes tender, and truth,whose presage the soul divines.

All the glory that girds the story of all thy life as withsunlight round,

All the spell that on all souls fell who saw thy spirit,and held them bound,Lives for all that have heard the call and cadence yet ofits music sound.

Music bright as the soul of light, for wings an eagle,for notes a dove,Leaps and shines from the lustrous lines wherethroughthy soul from afar aboveShone and sang till the darkness rang with light whosefire is the fount of love.

Love that led thee alive, and fed thy soul with sorrowsand joys and fears,Love that sped thee, alive and dead, to fame's fair goalwith thy peerless peers,Feeds the flame of thy quenchless name with light thatlightens the rayless years.

Dark as sorrow though night and morrow may lowerwith presage of clouded fame,How may she that of old bare thee, may Sidney'sEngland, be brought to shame?How should this be, while England is? What need ofanswer beyond thy name?

III.

From the love that transfigures thy glory,From the light of the dawn of thy death,The life of thy song and thy storyTook subtler and fierier breath.And we, though the day and the morrowSet fear and thanksgiving at strife,Hail yet in the star of thy sorrowThe sun of thy life.

Shame and fear may beset men here, and bidthanksgiving and pride be dumb:

Faith, discrowned of her praise, and wound about withtoils till her life wax numb,Scarce may see if the sundawn be, if darkness die notand dayrise come.

But England, enmeshed and benettedWith spiritless villainies round,With counsels of cowardice fretted,With trammels of treason enwound,Is yet, though the season be otherThan wept and rejoiced over thee,Thine England, thy lover, thy mother,Sublime as the sea.

Hers wast thou: if her face be now less bright, or seemfor an hour less brave,Let but thine on her darkness shine, thy saviour spiritrevive and save,Time shall see, as the shadows flee, her shame entombedin a shameful grave.

If death and not life were the portalThat opens on life at the last,If the spirit of Sidney were mortalAnd the past of it utterly past,Fear stronger than honour was ever,Forgetfulness mightier than fame,Faith knows not if England should neverSubside into shame.

Yea, but yet is thy sun not set, thy sunbright spirit oftrust withdrawn:England's love of thee burns above all hopes that darkenor fears that fawn:Hers thou art: and the faithful heart that hopes begetsupon darkness dawn.

The sunset that sunrise will followIs less than the dream of a dream:The starshine on height and on hollowSheds promise that dawn shall redeem:

The night, if the daytime would hide it,Shows lovelier, aflame and afar,Thy soul and thy Stella's beside it,A star by a star.