All night the thirsty beach has listening lain, With patience dumb, Counting the slow, sad moments of her pain; Now morn has come,
And with the morn the punctual tide again. I hear the white battalions down the bay Charge with a cheer; The sun's gold lances prick them on their way,—
They plunge, they rear,— Foam-plumed and snowy-pennoned, they are here! The roused shore, her bright hair backward blown, Stands on the verge
And waves a smiling welcome, beckoning on The flying surge, While round her feet, like doves, the billows crowd and urge. Her glad lips quaff the salt, familiar wine;
Her spent urns fill; All hungering creatures know the sound, the sign,— Quiver and thrill, With glad expectance crowd and banquet at their will.
I, too, the rapt contentment join and share; My tide is full; There is new happiness in earth, in air: All beautiful
And fresh the world but now so bare and dull. But while we raise the cup of bliss so high, Thus satisfied, Another shore beneath a sad, far sky
Waiteth her tide, And thirsts with sad complainings still denied. On earth's remotest bound she sits and waits In doubt and pain;
Our joy is signal for her sad estates; Like dull refrain Marring our song, her sighings rise in vain. To each his turn — the ebb-tide and the flood,
The less, the more — God metes his portions justly out, I know; But still before My mind forever floats that pale and grieving shore.
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