Poems (Welby)/To the Evening Star

by Amelia Welby

TO THE EVENING STAR.

If all those bright stars, in yon azure-arched heaven,
Are the mansions of rest for the pure ones of earth,
I hope I may dwell in yon bright star of even,
For they say that it smiled o'er the place of my birth.

When all the sweet voices are mute that have blest me,
And my form from the green earth is fading away,
O! then in that pure star how sweetly I'll rest me
And linger forever within its mild ray.

Soft star, when around me the weary are sleeping,
And all the bright blossoms their velvet leaves close,
If thou art above me thy silent watch keeping,
My bosom is calm as I sink to repose.

I feel 'neath thy soft beam a holy devotion,
That hushes my light tones of laughter and glee;
Mine eyelids are wet with a tearful emotion,
For my warm heart is melting while gazing on thee.

As the long dreamy hours the lone captive numbers,
From his iron-bound casement he looks on thy beam,
Till, losing his sorrows, he sinks to his slumbers
While o'er his wild spirit there steals a sweet dream.

When the sailor-boy roams o'er the tempest-tost ocean,
And thinks of the fond ones, he never may see,
He'll murmur a prayer 'mid the billows' commotion
For the loved and the absent, while gazing on thee.

How sweet to my bosom the soothing reflection,
That, should some rude blight all my earthly hopes mar,
From the depths of my heart the pure waves of affection
May gush in their sweetness to thee, gentle star.

When all the wild faults of my youth are forgiven,
And the light of thy pale beam no longer I see,
And the last earthly link from my spirit is riven,
With an angel's light pinion I'll waft me to thee.