# Poems of the Great War/The Stars in their Courses

THE STARS IN THEIR COURSES
AND now, while the dark vast earth shakes and  rocks In this wild dreamlike snare of mortal shocks, How look (I muse) those cold and solitary stars On these magnificent, cruel wars?— Venus, that brushes with her shining lips (Surely!) the wakeful edge of the world and mocks With hers its all ungentle wantonness?— Or the large moon (pricked by the spars of ships Creeping and creeping in their restlessness), The moon pouring strange light on things more  strange, Looks she unheedfully on seas and lands Trembling with change and fear of counterchange?
O, not earth trembles, but the stars, the stars! The sky is shaken and the cool air is quivering. I cannot look up to the crowded height And see the fair stars trembling in their light, For thinking of the starlike spirits of men Crowding the earth and with great passion quiver-  ing:— Stars quenched in anger and hate, stars sick with  pity.
I cannot look up to the naked skies Because a sorrow on a dark midnight lies, Death, on the living world of sense; Because on my own land a shadow lies That may not rise; Because from bare grey hillside and rich city Streams of uncomprehending sadness poor, Thwarting the eager spirit's pure intelligence. . .
How look (I muse) those cold and solitary stars On these magnificent, cruel wars?
Stars trembled in broad heaven, faint with pity. An hour to dawn I looked. Beside the trees Wet mist shaped other trees that branching rose, Covering the woods and putting out the stars. There was no murmur on the seas, No wind blew—only the wandering air that grows With dawn, then murmurs, sighs, And dies. The mist climbed slowly, putting out the stars, And the earth trembled when the stars were gone; And moving strangely everywhere upon The trembling earth, thickened the watery mist.
And for a time the holy things are veiled. England's wise thoughts are swords; her quiet hours
Are trodden underfoot like wayside flowers, And every English heart is England's wholly. In starless night A serious passion streams the heaven with light. A common beating is in the air— The heart of England throbbing everywhere. And all her roads are nerves of noble thought; And all her people's brain is but her brain; And all her history (less her shame) Is part of her requickened consciousness. Her courage rises clean again; Her children's inspiration is her name, her name!
Even in victory there hides defeat; The spirit's murdered though the body survives, Except the cause for which a people strives Burn with no covetous, foul heart; Fights she against herself who infamously draws The sword against man's secret spiritual laws. But thou, England, because a bitter heel Hath sought to bruise the brain, the sensitive will,
The conscience of the world, For this, England, art risen, and shalt fight Purely through long profoundest night,
Making their quarrel thine who are grieved like  thee; And (if to thee the stars yield victory) Tempering their hate of the great foe, that hurled Vainly her strength against the conscience of the  world, Though all their dead be countless as the stars, And all the living bitter as the sea.
I looked again, or dreamed I looked, and saw The stars again and all their place again. The moving mist had gone, and shining still The moon went high and pale above the hill. Not now those lights were trembling in the vast Ways of the nervy heaven, nor trembled earth; Profound and calm they gazed as the soft-shod  hours passed. And with less fear (not with less awe, Remembering, England, all the blood and pain), How look, I cried, ye stern and solitary stars On these disastrous wars!
JOHN FREEMAN