While yet he gazed and pondered reverently,
  The fickle folk began to move away. 
“It is but one star less for us to see;
  And what does one star signify?” quoth they: 
“The heavens are full of them.”  “But, ah!” said he,
  “That star was bright while yet she lasted.”  “Ay!”
They answered:  “Praise her, Poet, an’ ye will: 
Some are now shining that are brighter still.”

“Poor star! to be disparaged so soon
  On her withdrawal,” thus the Poet sighed;
“That men should miss, and straight deny her noon
  Its brightness!” But the people in their pride
Said, “How are we beholden? ’twas no boon
  She gave.  Her nature ’twas to shine so wide: 
She could not choose but shine, nor could we know
Such star had ever dwelt in heaven but so.”

The Poet answered sadly, “That is true!”
  And then he thought upon unthankfulness;
While some went homeward; and the residue,
  Reflecting that the stars are numberless,
Mourned that man’s daylight hours should be so few,
  So short the shining that his path may bless: 
To nearer themes then tuned their willing lips,
And thought no more upon the star’s eclipse.

But he, the Poet, could not rest content
  Till he had found that old Astronomer;
Therefore at midnight to his house he went
  And prayed him be his tale’s interpreter. 
And yet upon the heaven his eyes he bent,
  Hearing the marvel; yet he sought for her
That was a wanting, in the hope her face
Once more might fill its reft abiding-place.

Then said the old Astronomer:  “My son. 
  I sat alone upon my roof to-night;
I saw the stars come forth, and scarcely shun
  To fringe the edges of the western light;
I marked those ancient clusters one by one,
  The same that blessed our old forefather’s sight
For God alone is older—­none but He
Can charge the stars with mutability: 

“The elders of the night, the steadfast stars,
  The old, old stars which God has let us see,
That they might be our soul’s auxiliars,
  And help us to the truth how young we be—­
God’s youngest, latest born, as if, some spars
  And a little clay being over of them—­He
Had made our world and us thereof, yet given,
To humble us, the sight of His great heaven.

“But ah! my son, to-night mine eyes have seen
  The death of light, the end of old renown;
A shrinking back of glory that had been,
  A dread eclipse before the Eternal’s frown. 
How soon a little grass will grow between
  These eyes and those appointed to look down
Upon a world that was not made on high
Till the last scenes of their long empiry!

“To-night that shining cluster now despoiled
  Lay in day’s wake a perfect sisterhood;
Sweet was its light to me that long had toiled,
  It gleamed and trembled o’er the distant wood,
Blown in a pile the clouds from it recoiled,
  Cool twilight up the sky her way made good;
I saw, but not believed—­it was so strange—­
That one of those same stars had suffered change.