Saturday, December 21, 2024

When All the Stars Become a Memory

 When all the Stars become a Memory
by Joseph Mary Plunkett 

When all the stars become a memory
Hid in the heart of heaven: when the sun
At last is resting from his weary run
Sinking to glorious silence in the sea
Of God’s own glory: when the immensity
Of Nature’s universe its fate has won
And its reward: when death to death is done
And deathless Being’s all that is to be --

 Your praise shall ’scape the grinding of the mills:
My songs shall live to drive their blinding cars
Through fiery apocalypse to Heaven’s bars!
When God’s loosed might the prophet’s word fulfils,
My songs shall see the ruin of the hills,
My songs shall sing the dirges of the stars.