From the Past and Unavailing <br />Out of cloudland we are steering: <br />After groping, after fearing, <br />Into starlight we come trailing, <br />And we find the stars are true. <br />Still, O comrade, what of you? <br />You are gone, but we are sailing, <br />And the old ways are all new. <br /> <br />For the Lost and Unreturning <br />We have drifted, we have waited; <br />Uncommanded and unrated, <br />We have tossed and wandered, yearning <br />For a charm that comes no more <br />From the old lights by the shore: <br />We have shamed ourselves in learning <br />What you knew so long before. <br /> <br />For the Breed of the Far-going <br />Who are strangers, and all brothers, <br />May forget no more than others <br />Who looked seaward with eyes flowing. <br />But are brothers to bewail <br />One who fought so foul a gale? <br />You have won beyond our knowing, <br />You are gone, but yet we sail.<br /><br />Edwin Arlington Robinson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-pilot-2/
