Flood-Tide.

By Susan Coolidge (Sarah Chauncey Woolsey)

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.