FIXED is the doom; and to the last of years <br />Teacher and taught, friend, lover, parent, child, <br />Each walks, though near, yet separate; each beholds <br />His dear ones shine beyond him like the stars. <br />We also, love, forever dwell apart; <br />With cries approach, with cries behold the gulph, <br />The Unvaulted; as two great eagles that do wheel in air <br />Above a mountain, and with screams confer, <br />Far heard athwart the cedars. <br />Yet the years <br />Shall bring us ever nearer; day by day <br />Endearing, week by week, till death at last <br />Dissolve that long divorce. By faith we love, <br />Not knowledge; and by faith, though far removed, <br />Dwell as in perfect nearness, heart to heart. <br />We but excuse <br />Those things we merely are; and to our souls <br />A brave deception cherish. <br />So from unhappy war a man returns <br />Unfearing, or the seaman from the deep; <br />So from cool night and woodlands to a feast <br />May someone enter, and still breathe of dews, <br />And in her eyes still wear the dusky night.<br /><br />Robert Louis Stevenson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/fixed-is-the-doom/
