IT is little I care for earth's kings, <br />Its emperors, sultans and czars, <br />As I lie in the darkness and dream <br />All alone with my sheep and the stars. <br />For as dust of the moment are they, <br />Now agleam and now still on earth's breast; <br />But the stars, spreading wide in the night, <br />Travel on, ever on to the west. <br />My sheep, snugly camped in the dark, <br />Misty-white with the pale grasses blend; <br />But where is the camp of the stars? <br />And whither, O Night, do they wend? <br />Through leagues of dry distance we came, <br />Where dust-wreaths, wind-woven, upcurled, <br />Since Dawn dropped the rails of the east <br />And let the Day into our world. <br />Slow-moving we travelled the plains, <br />Trudging on through the sun and the wind, <br />Till Day galloped out of the west, <br />And Night set the sliprails behind. <br />And now, by my camp-fire alone, <br />A tryst with pale Wonder I keep — <br />That mystical Lady of Dreams, <br />Whose hour is the sleep-of-the-sheep. <br />Foot-tired in the grasses they lie, <br />Mist-pale in the darkness, and dumb; <br />Yet who was it mustered the stars, <br />And whence and what leagues have they come? <br />Who keeps them from straying apart? <br />Who urges them straight on their route? <br />No answer — none tell me; and lo! <br />The Night, though it listen, is mute! <br />Watch 'neath the stars of the Cross, <br />Orion, and Venus and Mars; <br />I am but a drover of sheep — <br />But who is the Drover of Stars?<br /><br />Roderic Quinn<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-drover-of-the-stars/
