Forty-two years ago (to me if to no one else <br />The number is of some interest) it was a brilliant starry night <br />And the westward train was empty and had no corridors <br />So darting from side to side I could catch the unwonted sight <br />Of those almost intolerably bright <br />Holes, punched in the sky, which excited me partly because <br />Of their Latin names and partly because I had read in the textbooks <br />How very far off they were, it seemed their light <br />Had left them (some at least) long years before I was. <br /> <br />And this remembering now I mark that what <br />Light was leaving some of them at least then, <br />Forty-two years ago, will never arrive <br />In time for me to catch it, which light when <br />It does get here may find that there is not <br />Anyone left alive <br />To run from side to side in a late night train <br />Admiring it and adding noughts in vain.<br /><br />Louis Macneice<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/star-gazer/