THE tide has ebbed away: No more wild dashings 'gainst the adamant rocks, Nor swayings amidst sea-weed false that mocks The hues of gardens gay: No laugh of little wavelets at their play: No lucid pools reflecting heaven's clear brow -- Both storm and calm alike are ended now. The rocks sit gray and lone: The shifting sand is spread so smooth and dry, That not a tide might ever have swept by Stirring it with rude moan: Only some weedy fragments idly thrown To rot beneath the sky, tell what has been: But Desolation's self has grown serene. Afar the mountains rise, And the broad estuary widens out, All sunshine; wheeling round and round about Seaward, a white bird flies. A bird? Nay, seems it rather in these eyes A spirit, o'er Eternity's dim sea Calling -- "Come thou where all we glad souls be. O life, O silent shore, Where we sit patient; O great sea beyond To which we turn with solemn hope and fond, But sorrowful no more: A little while, and then we too shall soar Like white-winged sea-birds into the Infinite Deep: Till then, Thou, Father -- wilt our spirits keep. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A CELEBRATION by WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS COLUMBUS by CINCINNATUS HEINE MILLER AN ESSAY ON MAN by ALEXANDER POPE THE BLUEBELLS OF NEW ENGLAND by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH NOONTIDE REST by ANTIPHILUS OF BYZANTIUM |