An Ember In The Dark Poem by Louis L'Amour

Faintly, along the shadowed shores of night
I saw a wilderness of stars that flamed
And fluttered as they climbed or sank, and shamed
The crouching dark with shyly twinkling light;
I saw them there, odd fragments quaintly bright,
And wondered at their presence there unclaimed,
That faded slow, like hope's arrested flight.

Or vanished suddenly, like futile fears- -
And some were old and worn like precious things
That youth preserves against encroaching years- -
Some disappeared like songs that no man sings,
But one remained- an ember in the dark-
I crouched alone, and blew upon the spark.