Jolly Company, The

Rupert Brooke

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.

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