Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
America: Vols. XXV–XXIX. 1876–79. | | | | New England: Gloucester, Mass. | | In the Sea | | Hiram Rich |
| | | THE SALT wind blows upon my cheek | |
| As it blew a year ago, | |
| When twenty boats were crushed among | |
| The rocks of Norman’s Woe. | |
| ’T was dark then; ’t is light now, | 5 |
| And the sails are leaning low. | |
| |
| In dreams I pull the sea-weed o’er, | |
| And find a face not his, | |
| And hope another tide will be | |
| More pitying than this. | 10 |
| The wind turns; the tide turns: | |
| They take what hope there is. | |
| |
| My life goes on as thine would go | |
| With all its sweetness spilled: | |
| My God! why should one heart of two | 15 |
| Beat on, when one is stilled? | |
| Through heart-wreck or home-wreck | |
| Thy happy sparrows build. | |
| |
| Though boats go down, men build anew, | |
| Whatever winds may blow; | 20 |
| If blight be in the wheat one year, | |
| We trust again, and sow, | |
| Though grief comes, and changes | |
| The sunshine into snow. | |
| |
| Some have their dead, where, sweet and soon, | 25 |
| The summers bloom and go. | |
| The sea withholds my dead: I walk | |
| The bar, when tides are low, | |
| And wonder the grave-grass | |
| Can have the heart to grow. | 30 |
| |
| Flow on, O unconsenting sea! | |
| And keep my dead below: | |
| Though night, O utter night! my soul, | |
| Delude thee long, I know, | |
| Or Life comes, or Death comes, | 35 |
| God leads the eternal flow. | | | | |
|
|
