Like rays shed

    By a spent star

The words of a dead

    Poet are,

That through bleak space

    Unchecked fly on,

Though heart, hand, 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.

‘Dedication: to an Unknown Reader’ from J.S’s collection of poems

The Glass-Blower, 1940