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.