THEY drift away. Ah, God! they drift for ever. I watch the stream sweep onward to the sea, Like some old battered buoy upon a roaring river, Round whom the tide-waifs hang -- then drift to sea. I watch them drift -- the old familiar faces, Who fished and rode with me, by stream and wold, Till ghosts, not men, fill old beloved places, And, ah! the land is rank with churchyard mould. I watch them drift -- the youthful aspirations, Shores, landmarks, beacons, drift alike. I watch them drift -- the poets and the statesmen; The very streams run upward from the sea. Yet overhead the boundless arch of heaven Still fades to night, still blazes into day. Ah, God! My God! Thou wilt not drift away! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SYMPATHY by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON THE CAPTAIN; AFTER READING HENLEY'S INVICTUS by DOROTHEA DAY HE HAD HIS DREAM by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR THE MAY MAGNIFICAT by GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS |