The sea awoke at midnight from its sleep,
  And round the pebbly beaches far and wide
  I heard the first wave of the rising tide
  Rush onward with uninterrupted sweep;
A voice out of the silence of the deep,
  A sound mysteriously multiplied
  As of a cataract from the mountain’s side,
  Or roar of winds upon a wooded steep. 
So comes to us at times, from the unknown
  And inaccessible solitudes of being,
  The rushing of the sea-tides of the soul;
And inspirations, that we deem our own,
  Are some divine foreshadowing and foreseeing
  Of things beyond our reason or control.

A SUMMER DAY BY THE SEA

The sun is set; and in his latest beams
  Yon little cloud of ashen gray and gold,
  Slowly upon the amber air unrolled,
  The falling mantle of the Prophet seems. 
From the dim headlands many a lighthouse gleams,
  The street-lamps of the ocean; and behold,
  O’erhead the banners of the night unfold;
  The day hath passed into the land of dreams. 
O summer day beside the joyous sea! 
  O summer day so wonderful and white,
  So full of gladness and so full of pain! 
Forever and forever shalt thou be
  To some the gravestone of a dead delight,
  To some the landmark of a new domain.

THE TIDES

I saw the long line of the vacant shore,
  The sea-weed and the shells upon the sand,
  And the brown rocks left bare on every hand,
  As if the ebbing tide would flow no more. 
Then heard I, more distinctly than before,
  The ocean breathe and its great breast expand,
  And hurrying came on the defenceless land
  The insurgent waters with tumultuous roar. 
All thought and feeling and desire, I said,
  Love, laughter, and the exultant joy of song
  Have ebbed from me forever!  Suddenly o’er me
They swept again from their deep ocean bed,
  And in a tumult of delight, and strong
  As youth, and beautiful as youth, upbore me.

A SHADOW

I said unto myself, if I were dead,
  What would befall these children?  What would be
  Their fate, who now are looking up to me
  For help and furtherance?  Their lives, I said,
Would be a volume wherein I have read
  But the first chapters, and no longer see
  To read the rest of their dear history,
  So full of beauty and so full of dread. 
Be comforted; the world is very old,
  And generations pass, as they have passed,
  A troop of shadows moving with the sun;
Thousands of times has the old tale been told;
  The world belongs to those who come the last,
  They will find hope and strength as we have done.

A NAMELESS GRAVE