Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE SHORE, by FREDERICK GODDARD TUCKERMAN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE SHORE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Again from the woods to the shore
Last Line: And the bitter backward wash, is all, is all.
Subject(s): Seashore; Wind


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.





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