Again from the woods to the shore, To the edge of the world where the world is all behind, Like the limit of life and death, Where the wind is an opiate balm, and the soul shall remember her griefs With a dull content at last, and dream and dream. The wind blows in from the shore The fresh salt smell of the weed with the briny shells, And my heart tides to and fro For here were the lips so loving, here the hands that pressed into mine With a happiness like pain, for love, for love. I see the hills of the shore And, above them, a belt of the ocean, dark and still, And my eyes come full with tears, For the white sandhills of the shore, and the shore and the high blue sea Bring back my grief, but never my joy, my joy. 'Twas here we stayed by the shore So late that the lights on the water began to move, The beacon to glare and go; For we said that the day should be dear, come weal, come woe, come boot, come bale: Oh, dear, forever and ever to us, to us. Alone at night on the shore I stand, while the stormy beacon flares and fades, And look for a lost delight; But the rising ridge far out, and the shock of the landing billow, And the bitter backward wash, is all, is all. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...RECESSIONAL by EDGAR LEE MASTERS OUT WHERE THE WEST BEGINS by ARTHUR CHAPMAN FANCY IN NUBIBUS; OR, THE POET IN THE CLOUDS by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE THE BERG (A DREAM) by HERMAN MELVILLE THE MOCKING-BIRD by FRANK LEBBY STANTON LOFT AT NIGHT by VIRGINIA ABEL |