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Edwin Arlington Robinson
From the Past and Unavailing
Out of cloudland we are steering;
After groping, after fearing,
Into starlight we come 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.
I lounge on the deck of the river-steamer,
Homeward bound with its load,
Churning from headland to headland,
Through moonlight and silence and dusk.
And the decks are alive with laughter and music and singing,
And I see the forms of the sleepers
And the shadowy lovers that lean so close to the rail,
And the romping children behind,
And the dancers amidships.
But high above us there in the gloom,
Where the merriment breaks like a wave at his feet,
Unseen of lover and dancer and me,
Is the Pilot, impassive and stern,
With his grim eyes watching the course.
NOR judge me light, tho' light at times I seem,
And lightly in the stress of fortune bear
The innumerable flaws of changeful care -
Nor judge me light for this, nor rashly deem
(Office forbid to mortals, kept supreme
And separate the prerogative of God!)
That seaman idle who is borne abroad
To the far haven by the favouring stream.
Not he alone that to contrarious seas
Opposes, all night long, the unwearied oar,
Not he alone, by high success endeared,
Shall reach the Port; but, winged, with some light breeze
Shall they, with upright keels, pass in before
Whom easy Taste, the golden pilot, steered.
for my father, 1922-1944
Your face did not rot
like the others--the co-pilot,
for example, I saw him
yesterday. His face is corn-
mush: his wife and daughter,
the poor ignorant people, stare
as if he will compose soon.
He was more wronged than Job.
But your face did not rot
like the others--it grew dark,
and hard like ebony;
the features progressed in their
distinction. If I could cajole
you to come back for an evening,
down from your compulsive