Who Loves Not The Star? (poetry)

1878

WHO LOVES NOT THE STAR?

Who loves not the Star-light,
Which gladdens the night
And makes the world happy
With heaven's bright rays?

Oh, who shuns the Star-light
Which God freely sends,
To bless and to prosper
His foes and his friends?

Is there a poor mortal
Self prisoned somewhere,
Far from the warm Star-light
And heaven's pure air?

Where glitters the purple,
With gold spangled o'er,
And rich colored carpets
Bedizen the floor.

Where gas rays alone
Flicker dim, like the lights
Oft seen in a church-yard
On foul murky nights.

And curtains hang over
The windows, like clouds
Which blacken the heavens,
Or like ghastly shrouds

That covers the forms
Of the dead and decayed,
Oh such, while they live,
Are in graves ready-made!

Oh then, the bright Star-light
To me freely give,
With beams all celestial
As long as I live.

Yes, when I am buried,
'Twill be time enough quite,
To draw the tomb's curtain
And shut off the light.

—Daily Star, Marion, Ohio, Jan. 10, 1878, p. 1.