On that night, it is said that there are given to the spirits that we see not a privilege and a power; the dead are troubled in their forgotten graves, and men feast and laugh, while demon and angel are contending for their doom.
It was night in heaven; all was unutterably silent; the music of the spheres had paused, and not a sound came from the angels of the stars; and they who sat upon those shining thrones were three thousand and ten, each resembling each.

Eternal youth clothed their radiant limbs with celestial beauty, and on their faces was written the dread of calm,--that fearful stillness which feels not, sympathizes not with the doom over which it broods.

War, tempest, pestilence, the rise of empires and their fall, they ordain, they compass, unexultant and uncompassionate.

The fell and thrilling crimes that stalk abroad when the world sleeps,--the parricide with his stealthy step and horrent brow and lifted knife; the unwifed mother that glides out and looks behind, and behind, and shudders, and casts her babe upon the river, and hears the wail, and pities not--the splash, and does not tremble,--these the starred kings behold, to these they lead the unconscious step; but the guilt blanches not their lustre, neither doth remorse wither their unwrinkled youth.

Each star wore a kingly diadem; round the loins of each was a graven belt, graven with many and mighty signs; and the foot of each was on a burning ball, and the right arm drooped over the knee as they bent down from their thrones.