Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

STARRY NIGHT by KENNETH SLADE ALLING

First Line: I FOLLOWED IN THE UNFATHOMABLE DARK
Last Line: THAT OF ALL THINGS ALONE WILL NOT BE GONE.
Subject(s): NIGHT; STARS; BEDTIME;
I followed in the unfathomable dark
Patterns of planets: saw the coasts of night
Strewn with strange phosphor; fantasies of light
In heaven's profound profusion; mistless; stark --
With mad imagination I could mark --
And printed on my inmost eye the sight
Of fiery, countless fruit hung from that height
On incandescent tree of blackest bark.

You took my hand -- a finite act -- we stood
Touching the silver infinite as one.
So children, lost, bewildered in a wood
Where the bright birds sing beautifully on
Forget awhile the adjacent solitude,
That of all things alone will not be gone.



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