Crosbie Garstin? I had never heard of him when I came across this poem in an early twentieth century anthology. Something about Nocturne said “South Africa” to me. I wondered whether he had been there, perhaps as a soldier of the Boer War.
A little research revealed that Crosbie Garstin (1887–1930) was a poet of the first world war and also a novelist. He came from Cornwall and before the war had lived an adventurous, outdoor life in many different parts of the world, including a spell farming in South Africa. He died in a mysterious boating accident in Devon at the age of forty-two.
The poem uses very concentrated language to capture beautifully the feeling of sleeping outdoors under a starry sky round a dying camp fire.
Something about the sense of peace, freedom and closeness to nature is very appealing in these uncertain times, when none of us can be sure about travelling anywhere again.
Nocturne by Crosbie Garstin
The red flame flowers bloom and die,
The embers puff a golden spark,
Now and again a horse’s eye
Shines like a topaz in the dark.
A prowling jackal jars the hush,
The drowsy oxen chump and sigh —
The ghost moon lifts above the bush
And creeps across the starry sky.
Low in the south the “Cross” is bright,
And sleep comes dreamless, undefiled,
Here in the blue and silver night,
In the star-chamber of the Wild.
The Good Reader 