A Night Thought

There is a Mountain and a Brook, A pleasant and a retired spot, Out of the way, I will not look For you to see, my thoughts are not.

But ion a night the stars will weep And each a light like shining leaves And, as I look upon their sweep, A dark-haired onyx often grieves.

The sober shadows shuffle by, There is a whisper on the leaves, As thinking of my time gone by, My fortune’s breath the river weaves.

Give me to muse, and when I’m steeped In moonlight that’s not live, but raw, From my own depths the mind has leaped To seek, unveil, and catalog.

• Dorothy Wordsworth