"Stars" by Sara Teasdale is a charming poem that doesn't seem to want to express anything more than the beauty of the stars on a clear summer's night. Describing them with such simple yet vivid metaphors as "Myriads with beating / Hearts of fire," the speaker seems to be completely in awe of them.
At times, the language suggests that the speaker sees observing the stars as some kind of religious experience. For example, they describe how the starts are climbing "Up the dome of heaven." In this context, the stars are not only a higher force but the highest force, keeping perfectly still and never tiring as they march towards heaven.
The poem ends,
And I know that IAm honored to beWitnessOf so much majesty.
Alone on the hill, the reader gets the feeling that the speaker—like a priest or nun—is ready to dedicate their life to this "heaven full of stars."
This poem by Sara Teasdale is a fairly straightforward expression of awe before the "majesty" of nature. On a dark night, the speaker stands alone near a pine forest, gazing up at the stars. The stars themselves are personified: they are "myriad," and Teasdale's language suggests that they are almost an army, whose supernatural strength means that they will not ever "tire" as they progress on their journey up "the dome of heaven." This army of stars, all ageless as if they have hung in the sky for "aeons," appears "stately and still" to the viewer, a group of majestic celestial beings whose progress across the sky seems to represent an ancient procession toward heaven.
Teasdale's feelings about this vast sky full of stars is appropriate to the choice of language she uses in describing them. The stars are majestic and "stately," and accordingly Teasdale suggests that being allowed to bear witness to their progress is an "honor," this simple natural occurrence overwhelming in its power.
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