"He bowed the heavens and came down, and darkness was under his
feet."

And the stillness on the faces of the stars became yet more
still, and the awfulness was humbled into awe. Right above their
thrones paused the course of the archangel; and his wings
stretched from east to west, overshadowing with the shadow of
light the immensity of space. Then forth in the shining
stillness, rolled the dread music of his voice: and, fulfilling
the heraldry of god, to each star he appointed the duty and the
charge, and each star bowed his head yet lower as he heard the
fiat, while his throne rocked and trembled at the majesty of the
word. But at last, when each of the brighter stars had, in
succession, received the mandate, and the viceroyalty over the
nations of the earth, the purple and diadems of kings--the
archangel addressed the lesser star as he sat apart from his
fellows

"Behold," said the archangel, "the rude tribes of the north, the
fishermen of the river that flows beneath, and the hunters of
the forests, that darken the mountain-tops with verdure! these
be thy charge, and their destinies thy care. Nor deem thou, O
star of the sullen beams, that thy duties are less glorious than
the duties of thy brethren; for the peasant is not less to thy
master and mine than the monarch; nor doth the doom of empires
rest more upon the sovereign than on the herd. The passions and
the heart are the dominion of the stars--a mighty realm; nor
less mighty beneath the hide that garbs the shepherd, than the
jewelled robes of eastern kings."