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As, sweeping and eddying through them,
Rose the belated tide,

And, streaming into the moonlight,
The sea-weed floated wide.

And like those waters rushing
Among the wooden piers,
A flood of thoughts came o'er me
That filled my eyes with tears.

How often, O, how often,

In the days that had gone by, I had stood on that bridge at midnight And gazed on that wave and sky!

How often, O, how often,

I had wished that the ebbing tide Would bear me away on its bosom O'er the ocean wild and wide!

For my heart was hot and restless,
And my life was full of care,
And the burden laid upon me
Seemed greater than I could bear.

But now it has fallen from me,
It is buried in the sea;
And only the sorrow of others
Throws it shadow over me.

Yet whenever I cross the river

On its bridge with wooden piers, Like the odor of brine from the ocean Comes the thought of other years.

And I think how many thousands
Of care-encumbered men,
Each bearing his burden of sorrow,

Have crossed the bridge since then.

SEA-WEED.

I see the long procession
Still passing to and fro,
The young heart hot and restless,
And the old subdued and slow!

And forever and forever,

As long as the river flows,
As long as the heart has passions,
As long as life has woes;

The moon and its broken reflection
And its shadows shall appear,
As the symbol of love in heaven,
And its wavering image here.

WHEN

SEA-WEED.

THEN descends on the Atlantic
The gigantic

Storm-wind of the equinox,

Landward in his wrath he scourges
The toiling surges,

Laden with sea-weed from the rocks:

From Bermuda's reefs; from edges
Of sunken ledges,

In some far-off, bright Azore;

From Bahama, and the dashing,

Silver-flashing

Surges of San Salvador;

From the tumbling surf, that buries

The Orkneyan skerries,
Answering the hoarse Hebrides;
And from wrecks of ships, and drifting
Spars, uplifting

On the desolate, rainy seas;

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Ever drifting, drifting, drifting
On the shifting

Currents of the restless main ;

Till in sheltered coves, and reaches
Of sandy beaches,

All have found repose again.

So when storms of wild emotion
Strike the ocean
Of the poet's soul, erelong
From each cave and rocky fastness,
In its vastness,

Floats some fragment of a song:

From the far-off isles enchanted,
Heaven has planted

With the golden fruit of Truth;
From the flashing surf, whose vision
Gleams Elysian

In the tropic clime of Youth;

From the strong Will, and the Endeavor That forever

Wrestles with the tides of Fate;

From the wreck of Hopes far-scattered, Tempest-shattered,

Floating waste and desolate;

Ever drifting, drifting, drifting
On the shifting

Currents of the restless heart;
Till at length in books recorded,
They, like hoarded

Household words, no more depart.

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While through the meadows,
Like fearful shadows,
Slowly passes

A funeral train.

The bell is pealing,
And every feeling
Within me responds

To the dismal knell ;

Shadows are trailing,
My heart is bewailing
And tolling within

Like a funeral bell.

THE DAY IS DONE.

THE

HE day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,

As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.

I see the lights of the village

Gleam through the rain and the mist, And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me, That my soul cannot resist :

A feeling of sadness and longing,
That is not akin to pain,

And resembles sorrow only

As the mist resembles the rain.

Come, read to me some poem,
Some simple and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish the thoughts of day.

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