Choose Something Like a Star

Choose Something Like a Star
by Robert Frost - 1947


O Star (the fairest one in sight),
We grant your loftiness the right
To some obscurity of cloud --
It will not do to say of night,
Since dark is what brings out your light.
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.
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.



Truth is an ever-fixed mark, one that does not sway with the tide of trends of the day, or with opinions of people. And while truth can at times be difficult to decipher, I find it a great comfort to know that my target isn't moving.


This principle could easily be applied to politics, but I am thinking this morning of how it applies to relationships. Two people with separate bearings on an unmoving star will find that, not only will they stay together, unified, but will arrive together at a destination pleasing to both. I have, in the past, (as I'm sure many before me have done, and will yet do,) set my bearings on the person with whom I was in a relationship, too easily swayed away from truth. With this thought, the picture comes to mind of two life-jacket-clad people without a boat clinging to each other in the water. Sure they have each other, but where are they going, and how could they possibly get there?