LXXXIX.
All Heaven and Earth are still—though not in sleep,
But breathless, as we grow when feeling most;[1]
And silent, as we stand in thoughts too deep:—
All Heaven and Earth are still: From the high host
Of stars, to the lulled lake and mountain-coast,
All is concentered in a life intense,
Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost,
But hath a part of Being, and a sense
Of that which is of all Creator and Defence.[2]
- ↑ [Compare Wordsworth's sonnet, "It is a Beauteous," etc.—
"It is a beauteous evening, calm and free,
The holy time is quiet as a nun
Breathless with adoration."] - ↑ [Here, too, the note is Wordsworthian, though Byron
"Who can contemplate Fame through clouds unfold
The star which rises o'er her steep," etc.?
And the allusion to Napoleon's "star," stanza xxxviii. line 9—
"Nor learn that tempted Fate will leave the loftiest Star."
Compare, too, the opening lines of the Stanzas to Augusta (July 24, 1816)—
"Though the day of my destiny's over,
And the star of my fate has declined."
"Power" is symbolized as a star in Numb. xxiv. 17, "There shall come a star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel;" and in the divine proclamation, "I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star (Rev. xxii. 16).
The inclusion of "life" among star similes may have been suggested by the astrological terms, "house of life" and "lord of the ascendant." Wordsworth, in his Ode (Intimations of Immortality, etc.) speaks of the soul as "our life's star." Mr. Tozer, who supplies most of these "comparisons," adds a line from Shelley's Adonais, 55. 8 (Pisa, 1821)—
"The soul of Adonais, like a star."]
