The tide has ebbed away;
No more wild surgings 'gainst the adamant rocks,
No swayings of the sea-weed false that mocks
The hues of gardens gay:
No laugh of little wavelets at their play;
No lucid pools reflecting heaven's broad brow--
Both storm and calm alike are ended now.
The bare gray rocks sit lone;
The shifting sand lies spread so smooth and dry
That not a wave might ever have swept by
To vex it with loud moan;
Only some weedy fragments blackening thrown
To rot beneath the sky, tell what has been,
But Desolation's self is 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
An angel; o'er Eternity's dim sea,
Beckoning--'Come thou where all we glad souls be.'
O life! O silent shore
Where we sit patient! O great Sea beyond,
To which we look with solemn hope and fond,
But sorrowful no more!--
Would we were disembodied souls, to soar,
And like white sea-birds wing the Infinite Deep!--
Till then, Thou, Just One, wilt our spirits keep.