The Stars
Louis H.
Brindley
Brindley, Louis H.
Metadata research and editing
DVPP Project Team
Fralick
Kaitlyn
University of Victoria Digital Victorian Periodical Poetry Project
Victoria, BC, Canada
In the public domain
Chambers’s Journal ledger indicates that L. H. Brindley was paid 10s 6d for the poem (NLS Dep 341/370). (AC)
Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal
5
7
338
400
What are their years ? The night’s unfathomed
deep
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CSS remediation, verified.
Created pom_13146_incid_poem rendition to reset font-sizes.
Added useful rendition elements in anticipation of CSS reworking.
Marking specific renditions as incidental.
Handle cases of incidental titles, where head elements have child elements with style
attributes.
Re-organized change elements in descending date order.
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Set status to 'proofed'. Added catRef and sonic devices. Altered spacing. Moved long strings
of CSS to the tagsDecl.
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The Star
s.
What are their years ? The night’s unfathomed
deep
Rings back no answer, gives no glimmering key ;
And still unknown, and beautiful, they keep
The silent courses of Eternity.
What are their memories of Creation’s days,
When startled Chaos, from its kingdom hurled,
First knew its Master, and with glad amaze
They sang the birth-song of our trembling world ?
What have they looked on since, with patient eyes,
While million years uncounted rolled away ?
Who claims antiquity for man that dies,
Before such records of the Past as they ?
Can they to man his mystery explain,
The why, the whence, of his uncertain state ?
Unlock the riddle that he reads in vain,
And clear the tangled problem of his fate ?
Can they a fashion to the future give,
And tell the whither of man’s anxious quest ?
Make life a less than weariness to live,
Or stay the hazard of his wild unrest ?
Oh Stars ! what midnight message do ye bear
To minds grown weary with the years’ increase ?
The wistful eyes that watch you shining there,
Look out of troubled hearts that know not peace.
Louis H. Brindley
.