Ronald Ross
Back to T. Sturge Moore
Forward to Edmund Beale Sargant
- Ah whither dost thou float, sweet silent star,
- In yonder floods of evening's dying light?
- Before the fanning wings of rising night,
- Methinks thy silvery bark is driven far
- To some lone isle or calmly havened shore,
- Where the lorn eye of man can follow thee no more.
- How many a one hath watched thee even as I,
- And unto thee and thy receding ray
- Poured forth his thoughts with many a treasured sigh
- Too sweet and strange for the remorseless day;
- But thou hast gone and left unto their sight
- Too great a host of stars, and yet too black a night.
- E'en as I gaze upon thee, thy bright form
- Doth sail away among the cloudy isles
- Around whose shores the sea of sunlight smiles.
- On thee may break no black and boisterous storm
- To turn the tenour of thy calm career.
- As thou wert long ago so now thou dost appear.
- Art thou a tear left by the exiled day
- Upon the dusky cheek of drowsy night?
- Or dost thou as a lark carol alway
- Full in the liquid flow of heavenly light?
- Or, bent on discord and angelic wars,
- As some bright spirit tread before the trooping stars?
- The disenchanted vapours hide thee fast;
- The watery twilight fades and night comes on;
- One lingering moment more and thou art gone,
- Lost in the rising sea of clouds that cast
- Their inundations o'er the darkening air;
- And wild the night wind wails the lightless world's despair.
Back to T. Sturge Moore
Forward to Edmund Beale Sargant