“Ebb-Tide”

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).