The Jolly Company

The stars, a jolly company,

I envied, straying late and lonely;

And cried upon their revelry:

"O white companionship! You only

In love, in faith unbroken dwell,

Friends radiant and inseparable!"

Light-heart and glad they seemed to me

And merry comrades (EVEN SO

GOD OUT OF HEAVEN MAY LAUGH TO SEE

THE HAPPY CROWDS; AND NEVER KNOW

THAT IN HIS LONE OBSCURE DISTRESS

EACH WALKETH IN A WILDERNESS).

But I, remembering, pitied well

And loved them, who, with lonely light,

In empty infinite spaces dwell,

Disconsolate. For, all the night,

I heard the thin gnat-voices cry,

Star to faint star, across the sky.