Classic Poem

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.

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.

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.