b o y d    s p a h r

R.P.W. — Lines Ending in “Star”

[152] The Turkish Spies Ali Abubeker Kaled, and Zenobia Marrita Mustapha; or The Mohammedan Prophet of 1854 and Robert Graham

[158] Ida Norman; or, Trials and Their Uses and Camp Fires of the Red Men: or, A Hundred Years Ago

R.P.W. — Lines Ending in “Star”
(in the order in which they appear in The Collected Poems)

Then knightly bodies quiet beneath low stars,
Creeping up from lost stars
Up to the taciturn and cynic stars
And night hang out a casual first star
While brightness drops from star and star:
“Man in black coat, riding bay mare with star.”
Carries its knowledge, navigator without star,
Railroad yonder and coal chute, town roofs far under the first star.
Then his, with the calm of a night field, or far star:

Is there. Only you. And in starlight,
Far off. Then silence. What’s that? And something blots star—
The water, wan, moves under starlight,
In leafage of no star.
If we could only, then that star
Fading to moth-sky, blood-red to moth-white and starlight,
And I now saw past the fartherest stars
It was there, but I said it was only a trick of starlight.
Night heaved, and burning, the star

You move under the paleness of new stars.
Tonight I shall dream of small white stars
of real estate and the beauty of stars,
And the silence swells up to the stars, and the stars
From the crank-case. Look! the stars
Is reflected in dark water, and a star
Make it a story of great distances, and starlight.
He stared at the icy and paranoid glitter of winter stars.
The human condition, the stars

Cried out, “O Reality!” The stars
Answers the glitter of stars.
The over-wash of rose color now fails. Fails, though no star
Is ancient, too, and immense. The star
Now dancing, now dancing, point starward.
Of course, under the high stars.
Long out in the tent, and stars
To do but walk in the dark, and no stars?
Which, upward, reflects a tiny refulgence of stars.

The Pascalian nausea make dizzy the last stars?
Of life to the birth of a first star,
So you stand in the infinite circle, star after star,
Of enormous, white, and foreign stars?
By its single, miniscule, radiant, enshrinéd star.
And lighted by one great star.
High snow shines moonlit, and a star
Where tall buildings, frailer than reed-stalks, reeled among stars.
Wonder what was the price of a star?

Ahead, would blot out, star by star,
Distance to distance threading starlight,
It is autumn, Now as Then, and the stars
In a moonless night of summer, but with star-glow
You think of starlight on the river, star
Of leaves now black as enameled tin. Nothing astounds the stars.
All night, it will lie there under the stars,
Blood-stained, that I, in my star-stung
And crazily dreamed of a night when I would know all, and, like a star,

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[152] The Turkish Spies Ali Abubeker Kaled, and Zenobia Marrita Mustapha; or The Mohammedan Prophet of 1854 and Robert Graham

Had Miguel's good sword been then hanging at his side it is probable that Julia would not have been long a prisoner. The two lovers, the evening before, had gone to attend a peasant's festival, held at a neighboring village. They had watched with pleasure the gayety and rejoicing of the honest villagers, and the darkness had already set in ere they started on their homeward way. They were obliged to pass through a little patch of woodland, where the branches and leaves were so thick overhead that a complete darkness wrapped its folds over and around them as they passed beneath. They had reached the middle of this little wood when Don Miguel felt himself suddenly seized from behind by two stalwart men, the bridle of his steed was held fast by another, and he was dragged from his saddle, without the power of moving
hand or foot. The lady Julia

If Henry had been captivated by Nora, in all her wild levity and unchastened spirits, how much more charming did he find her now, since the discipline of life had subdued the exuberance of animal gayety, and love had not only softened, but exalted her character? He feared at first she had lost a little too much of her original sparkling brightness; but when he saw her, the cynosure of his Northern home, in the midst of new and exciting scenes, glowing with happiness herself, and diffusing it around her—her spirits never effervescing too boisterously, or sinking too despondingly, occasionally flashing with the brilliancy of mirth, and always shining with the serene lustre of cheerfulness, he felt that she retained all the warmth and vitality and individuality he had so much admired, with the added graces of gentleness, sweetness, and womanly dependence. As she told Henry, the downy wings of Julia's

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[158] Ida Norman; or, Trials and Their Uses and Camp Fires of the Red Men: or, A Hundred Years Ago

We all wish so much, dear Julia, you were here, but it seems you are full of literary projects, and destined to be a distinguished American author, (Mrs. Newton objects to authoress, poetess, etc., says we might as well say Christianess—that what is merely intellectual or spiritual, should not be distinguished by gender.) We are all on the que vive for your forthcoming work. Mr. Goodwin spoke to Mrs. Newton and Ida of having seen some part of it in manuscript; he says the publisher is highly delighted with it, and that every thing you write is very popular. Why is it that some have superior talents, and others are born only to mediocrity? but we all have our sphere of duty; mine in domestic life is rendered very happy by the affection of my best of husbands. Well, I hear his footsteps and must go to meet him. We all speak of you much, dear Julia

Meanwhile age was setting his seal in deeper and deeper characters on the features of Colonel and Mistress Warwick. In the absence of their protege, however, they were still consoled by the presence of their niece Julia, whom they had not failed to invite from England, and who, of nearly the same age as our hero, had been brought up as his companion and playmate, and been taught to regard him as a brother. On his part the feeling was fully reciprocated. He looked on the gentle blue-eyed girl as a sister, and gave her strength, as the sun invigorates a flower; while she, in return, leaned on him in confiding trust, and looked with happy pride on his strong and manly qualities, and was of a disposition so meek that it never occurred to her to be jealous of the favor and expense which her relations showered upon him, an unknown foundling though he was. But Julia

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BOYD SPAHR's work has appeared recently or is forthcoming in Fascicle, mark(s), Shampoo, and nikki2006slavebitch.