THE HERDING

Quietly, quietly in from the fields

Of the grey Atlantic the billows come,

Like sheep to the fold.

Shorn by the rocks of fleecy foam,

They sink on the brown seaweed at home;

And a bell, like that of a bellwether,

Is scarcely heard from the buoy —

Save when they suddenly stumble together,

In herded hurrying joy,

Upon its guidance: then soft music

From it is tolled.

Far out in the murk that follows them in

Is heard the call of the fog-horn's voice,

Like a shepherd's — low.

And the strays as if waiting it seem to pause

And lift their heads and listen — because

It is sweet from wandering ways to be driven,

When we have fearless breasts,

When all that we strayed for has been given,

When no want molests

Us more — no need of the tide's ebbing

And tide's flow.