The Pilot
From the Past and Unavailing
Out of cloudland we are steering:
After groping, after fearing,
Into starlight we came trailing,
And we find the stars are true.
Still, O comrade, what of you?
You are gone, but we are sailing,
And the old ways are all new.
For the Lost and Unreturning
We have drifted, we have waited,
Uncommanded and unrated,
We have tossed and wandered, yearning
For a charm that comes no more
From the old lights by the shore:
We have shamed ourselves in learning
What you knew so long before.
From the Breed of the Far-going
Who are strangers, and all brothers,
May forget no more than others
Who look seaward with eyes flowing,
But are brothers to bewail
One who fought so foul a gale?
You have won beyond our knowing,
You are gone, but yet we sail.
Jezzie G 