@3We spend our lives in learning pilotage, And grow good steersmen when the vessel's crank!@1 Gap-toothed he spake, and with a tottering shank Sidled to gain the sunny bench of Age. It is the sentence which completes that stage; A testament of wisdom reading blank. The seniors of the race, on their last plank, Pass mumbling it as nature's final page. These, bent by such experience, are the band Who captain young enthusiasts to maintain What things we view, and Earth's decree withstand, Lest dreaded Change, long dammed by dull decay, Should bring the world a vessel steered by brain, And ancients musical at close of day. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE FABRIC OF LIFE by KAY RYAN PRAYER TO THE OCEAN by GEORGE SANTAYANA NOBODY KNOWS BUT MOTHER by MARY MORRISON SOLDIER: TWENTIETH CENTURY by ISAAC ROSENBERG THE DOLLS by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS TWELVE SONNETS: 8 by GEORGE BARLOW (1847-1913) A PASSSGE TO ITALY by WILLIAM ROSE BENET DUMB IN JUNE by RICHARD EUGENE BURTON ON THE MEANING OF THE WORD 'WRATH' AS APPLIED TO GOD IN SCRIPTURE by JOHN BYROM |