The yellow book: an illustrated quarterly (9.1896)

i39

By Alma Strettell

Like blocks of shadow they are there,
Nor ever do their eyes divine
That far away beyond the mists
Acrid and spongy—there exists
A firmament where ’mid the night,
Attractive as a loadstone, bright
Prodigious planets shine.

The fishers black of that black plague
Are the immensely lost, among
The knells, the far-off distance vague,
The great beyond stretched out so long,
Further than any eye can see ;

And the damp autumn midnight rains
Into their souls’ monotony.