Choose Something Like a Star - Randall Thompson

O Star
 The fairest one in sight
 O Star
 We grant your loftiness the right
 O Star
 To some obscurity of cloud
 O Star
 It will not do to say of night,
 O Star
 Since dark is what brings out your light.
 O Star...
 Some mystery becomes the proud.
 But to be wholly taciturn
 In your reserve is not allowed.
 Say something to us we can learn
 By heart and when alone repeat.
 Say something! And it says 'I burn.'
 But say with what degree of heat.
 Talk Fahrenheit, talk Centigrade.
 Use language we can comprehend.
 Tell us what elements you blend.
 It gives us strangely little aid,
 But does tell something in the end.
 O Star
 And steadfast as Keats' Eremite,
 Not even stooping from its sphere,
 It asks a little of us here.
 It asks of us a certain height,
 So when at times the mob is swayed
 To carry praise or blame too far,
 We may choose something like a star
 To stay our minds on and be staid.