Roll on, ye starts! exult in youthful prime, <br />Mark with bright curves the printless steps of time; <br />Near and more near your beamy cars approach, <br />And lessening orbs on lessening orbs encroach; <br />Flowers of the sky! ye, too, to age must yield. <br />Frail as your silken sisters of the field! <br />Star after star from heaven's high arch shall rush, <br />Suns sink on suns, and systems systems crush, <br />Headlong, extinct, to one dark centre fall, <br />And death, and night, and chaos mingle all! <br />Till o'er the wreck, emerging from the storm, <br />Immortal nature lifts her changeful form, <br />Mounts from her funeral pyre on wings of flame, <br />And soars and shines, another and the same!<br /><br />Erasmus Darwin<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-the-stars-5/
