As I look from the isle, o'er its billows of green, <br /> To the billows of foam-crested blue, <br /> Yon bark, that afar in the distance is seen, <br /> Half dreaming, my eyes will pursue: <br /> Now dark in the shadow, she scatters the spray <br /> As the chaff in the stroke of the flail; <br /> Now white as the sea-gull, she flies on her way, <br /> The sun gleaming bright on her sail. <br /> <br /> Yet her pilot is thinking of dangers to shun,-- <br /> Of breakers that whiten and roar; <br /> How little he cares, if in shadow or sun <br /> They see him who gaze from the shore! <br /> He looks to the beacon that looms from the reef, <br /> To the rock that is under his lee, <br /> As he drifts on the blast, like a wind-wafted leaf, <br /> O'er the gulfs of the desolate sea. <br /> <br /> Thus drifting afar to the dim-vaulted caves <br /> Where life and its ventures are laid, <br /> The dreamers who gaze while we battle the waves <br /> May see us in sunshine or shade; <br /> Yet true to our course, though the shadows grow dark, <br /> We'll trim our broad sail as before, <br /> And stand by the rudder that governs the bark, <br /> Nor ask how we look from the shore!<br /><br />Oliver Wendell Holmes<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sun-and-shadow/
