Dedication: To An Unknown Reader Poem by Jan Struther

LIKE rays once shed
By a spent star
The words of a dead
Poet are,
That through bleak space
Unchecked fly on,
Though hand, heart, face,
To dust are gone;
And you who read
Shall only guess
What thorn-sharp need,
What loneliness,
What love, lust, dream,
Shudder or sigh
Lit the long beam
That meets your eye:
Nor, guess you never
So well, so true,
Shall comfort ever
Reach from you
To me, an old
Black shrivelled sphere,
Who has been cold
This million year.