Stars
Bright stars, yellow stars, flashing through the air,Are you errant strands of Lady Mary's hair?As she slits the cloudy veil and bends down through,Do you fall across her cheeks and over heaven too?
Gay stars, little stars, you are little eyes,Eyes of baby angels playing in the skies.Now and then a winged child turns his merry faceDown toward the spinning world -- what a funny place!
Jesus Christ came from the Cross (Christ receive my soul!)In each perfect hand and foot there was a bloody hole.Four great iron spikes there were, red and never dry,Michael plucked them from the Cross and set them in the sky.
Christ's Troop, Mary's Guard, God's own men,Draw your swords and strike at Hell and strike again.Every steel-born spark that flies where God's battles are,Flashes past the face of God, and is a star.
Words in this poem
- errant n.
- One who wanders about. Fuller.
- funny a.
- Droll; comical; amusing; laughable. Funny bone. See crazy bone, under Crazy. [From Fun.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Stars is in the public domain. This text is taken from Trees, and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #263; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Joyce Kilmer, Stars, in Trees and Other Poems (1914), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #263, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/kilmer-trees/stars.html, id L12891.
Form and metre
Stars is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABB. The metre is trochaic hexameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%). 82% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 11.1 syllables. 6% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in trochaic hexameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 AABB airA · hairA · throughB · tooB
- 2 AABB eyesA · skiesA · faceB · placeB
- 3 AABB soulA · holeA · dryB · skyB
- 4 AABB menA · againA · areB · starB
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against trochaic hexameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Bright stars, yellow stars, flashing through the air, | 10 | ··/˘·/˘··· |
| Are you errant strands of Lady Mary's hair? | 11 | ··/˘··/˘/˘· |
| As she slits the cloudy veil and bends down through, | 11 | ····/˘····· |
| Do you fall across her cheeks and over heaven too? | 11 | ···˘/····/· |
| Gay stars, little stars, you are little eyes, | 10 | ··/˘···/˘· |
| Eyes of baby angels playing in the skies. | 11 | ··/˘/˘/˘··· |
| Now and then a winged child turns his merry face | 11 | ········/˘· |
| Down toward the spinning world -- what a funny place! | 12 | ····/˘···/˘· |
| Jesus Christ came from the Cross (Christ receive my soul!) | 12 | /˘······˘/·· |
| In each perfect hand and foot there was a bloody hole. | 13 | ··/·······/˘· |
| Four great iron spikes there were, red and never dry, | 10 | ··/·····/· |
| Michael plucked them from the Cross and set them in the sky. | 13 | /˘··········· |
| Christ's Troop, Mary's Guard, God's own men, | 8 | ··/˘···· |
| Draw your swords and strike at Hell and strike again. | 11 | ·········˘/ |
| Every steel-born spark that flies where God's battles are, | 12 | /˘·······/˘· |
| Flashes past the face of God, and is a star. | 11 | /˘········· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.