Landon in The New Monthly 1839/The Polar Star
4
The New Monthly Magazine, Volume 55, Pages 28 to 29
THE POLAR STAR.
This star sinks below the horizon in certain latitudes. I watched it sink lower and lower every night, till at last it disappeared.
A star has left the kindling sky—
A lovely northern light—
How many planets are on high,
But that has left the night.
I miss its bright familiar face,
It was a friend to me,
Associate with my native place,
And those beyond the sea.
It rose upon our English sky,
Shone o’er our English land,
And brought back many a loving eye,
And many a gentle hand,
It seem’d to answer to my thought,
It called the past to mind,
And with its welcome presence brought
All I had left behind.
The voyage it lights no longer, ends
Soon on a foreign shore;
How can I but recall the friends,
Whom I may see no more?
Fresh from the pain it was to part—
How could I bear the pain?
Yet strong the omen in my heart
That says—We meet again.
Meet with a deeper, dearer love,
For absence shows the worth
Of all from which we then remove,
Friends, home, and native earth.
Thou lovely polar star, mine eyes
Still turned the first on thee,
Till I have felt a sad surprise
That none looked up with me.
But thou hast sunk below the wave,
Thy radiant place unknown;
I seem to stand beside a grave.
And stand by it alone.
Farewell!—ah, would to me were given
A power upon thy light,
What words upon our English heaven
Thy loving rays should write!
Kind messages of love and hope
Upon thy rays should be;
Thy shining orbit would have scope
Scarcely enough for me.
Oh, fancy vain as it is fond,
And little needed too,
My friends! I need not look beyond
My heart to look for you!
L. E. L.