John Masefield… One of my favourite poets, and here is another of his sonnets which brings an image vividly to mind. When I was much younger, I loved science-fiction and would go to the library three or four times a week with my own tickets and my mum’s, and borrow books by Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov and others…
In emptiest furthest heaven where no stars are
Perhaps some planet of our master sun
Still rolls an unguessed orbit round its star
Unthought, unseen, unknown of any one.
Roving dead space according to its law
Casting our light on burnt-out suns and blind
Singing in the frozen void its word of awe
One wandering thought in all that idiot mind.
And, in some span of many a thousand year,
Passing through heaven, its influence may arouse
Beauty unguessed in those who habit here,
And men may rise with glory on their brows,
And feel new life like fire, and see the old
Fall from them dead, the bronze’s broken mould.
Lois Elsden 