Gone the old rapture and the old delight;
Gone the still ecstasy that thrilled like fire
Along my veins, heart-lit with chaste desire;
Gone even the dream that thro’ the longest night
Shone like a beacon’s soft, recurrent light;
Lip-touch and hand-clasp; dear and broken speech,
Heart-question and heart-answer, each on each―
All the old rapture, all the old delight!
Gone all life’s music―yea, forevermore!
Yet strong to bear I bow myself and hear
Its echoes borne up bitter years to me. . . .
As some sea-lover on a barren shore
Hears far across the waste of tide-lands drear
The lingering recession of the sea.
“Ebb-Tide” as it appears in Higginson’s When the Birds Go North Again (1898).