To my friends who have Gone

You go your ways, the ways that open lie
To all the many, saving such as I
Who sit beside the hearth-light's fitful gleaming
And smoke the pipe of silence, dreaming, dreaming,
And watch the embers settle down and die.

Nor is it that I do not wish to fly
Chaste breast or quiet mind; that nunnery
Withholds me not, as ever onward streaming
You go your ways.

Strange lands and waters spread beneath a sky
That looks on deeds of wonder, I descry,
And then awake and find it was but seeming
And lost my ships of dream with wakes acreaming,
While, bugles ringing out and pennants high,
You go your ways.