Yet guessed not the word that we spake was a living word,
Applauding the sound,--we account you as worse than foes!
We sobbed you our message; ye said, 'It is song, and sweet!'"




THE GOING OUT OF THE TIDE


The eastern heaven was all faint amethyst,
Whereon the moon hung dreaming in the mist;
To north yet drifted one long delicate plume
Of roseate cloud; like snow the ocean-spume.

Now when the first foreboding swiftly ran
Through the loud-glorying sea that it began
To lose its late gained lordship of the land,
Uprose the billow like an angered man,
And flung its prone strength far along the sand;
Almost, almost to the old bound, the dark
And taunting triumph-mark.

But no, no, no! and slow, and slow, and slow,
Like a heart losing hold, this wave must go,--
Must go, must go,--dragged heavily back, back,
Beneath the next wave plunging on its track,
Charging, with thunderous and defiant shout,
To fore-determined rout.