When All the Stars
Become a Memory
by Joseph Mary Plunkett (1887-1916)
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. |