SITTING ON THE SHORE.

The tide has ebbed away; No more wild surgings 'gainst the adamant rocks, No swayings of the sea-weed false that mocks The hues of gardens gay: No laugh of little wavelets at their play; No lucid pools reflecting heaven's broad brow— Both storm and calm alike are ended now. The bare gray rocks sit lone; The shifting sand lies spread so smooth and dry That not a wave might ever have swept by To vex it with loud moan; Only some weedy fragments blackening thrown To rot beneath the sky, tell what has been, But Desolation's self is grown serene. Afar the mountains rise, And the broad estuary widens out, All sunshine; wheeling round and round about Seaward, a white bird flies; A bird? Nay, seems it rather in these eyes An angel; o'er Eternity's dim sea, Beckoning—'Come thou where all we glad souls be.' O life! O silent shore Where we sit patient! O great Sea beyond, To which we look with solemn hope and fond, But sorrowful no more!— Would we were disembodied souls, to soar, And like white sea-birds wing the Infinite Deep!— Till then, Thou, Just One, wilt our spirits keep.