Image: ‘Night’ © alexabboud. Source: CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Author: Sorcha Walsh
I walked on in a busy crowd
As if enmired in swamplike tar
When just then from behind a cloud
A bright and single evening star
O’er the land, in solid sable
A needle’s hole in heaven’s gable.
Stiller still than the daffodils
That flutter and dance in the breeze
More continuous than the hills
Or the grass they wear, or the trees
Just one saw I for all my staring
And it looked back, bold and daring
The lamps of the street shone, but it
Was not outdone by their orange glow
A spirit could not but be lift’d
By this small and sacred show
I walked away but could not forget
What beauty on that night I’d met
For oft, when through the streets I go
With angry or with crowded mind
I think of that star, shining so
My own rich light, so warm and kind
And then my restlessness is far
Leaving just that single bright star