“The darkness gathered, and methought she spread,
  Wrapped in a reddish haze that waxed and waned;
But notwithstanding to myself I said—­
  ’The stars are changeless; sure some mote hath stained
Mine eyes, and her fair glory minished.’ 
  Of age and failing vision I complained,
And I bought ’some vapor in the heavens doth swim,
That makes her look so large and yet so dim.’

“But I gazed round, and all her lustrous peers
  In her red presence showed but wan and white
For like a living coal beheld through tears
  She glowed and quivered with a gloomy light: 
Methought she trembled, as all sick through fears,
  Helpless, appalled, appealing to the night;
Like one who throws his arms up to the sky
And bows down suffering, hopeless of reply.

“At length, as if an everlasting Hand
  Had taken hold upon her in her place,
And swiftly, like a golden grain of sand,
  Through all the deep infinitudes of space
Was drawing her—­God’s truth as here I stand—­
  Backward and inward to itself; her face
Fast lessened, lessened, till it looked no more
Than smallest atom on a boundless shore.

“And she that was so fair, I saw her lie,
  The smallest thing in God’s great firmament,
Till night was lit the darkest, and on high
  Her sisters glittered, though her light was spent;
I strained, to follow her, each aching eye,
  So swiftly at her Maker’s will she went;
I looked again—­I looked—­the star was gone,
And nothing marked in heaven where she had shone.”

“Gone!” said the Poet, “and about to be
  Forgotten:  O, how sad a fate is hers!”
“How is it sad, my son?” all reverently
  The old man answered; “though she ministers
No longer with her lamp to me and thee,
  She has fulfilled her mission.  God transfers
Or dims her ray; yet was she blest as bright,
For all her life was spent in giving light.”

“Her mission she fulfilled assuredly,”
  The Poet cried; “but, O unhappy star! 
None praise and few will bear in memory
  The name she went by.  O, from far, from far
Comes down, methinks, her mournful voice to me,
  Full of regrets that men so thankless are.” 
So said, he told that old Astronomer
All that the gazing crowd had said of her.

And he went on to speak in bitter wise,
  As one who seems to tell another’s fate,
But feels that nearer meaning underlies,
  And points its sadness to his own estate: 
“If such be the reward,” he said with sighs,
  “Envy to earn for love, for goodness hate—­
If such be thy reward, hard case is thine! 
It had been better for thee not to shine.

“If to reflect a light that is divine
  Makes that which doth reflect it better seen,
And if to see is to contemn the shrine,
  ’Twere surely better it had never been: 
It had been better for her NOT TO SHINE,
  And for me NOT TO SING.  Better, I ween,
For us to yield no more that radiance bright,
For them, to lack the light than scorn the light.”