THE TIDE OF

Love, when you leave me, as with moon-bent tide

The glad waves leave the beaches of my heart;

Slowly and indolently they depart

Ripple by ripple, till the light has died

And left the naked sands forlorn to bide

The sea's return. No might of human power

Can fill the empty waste, nor take one hour

From that long durance in Earth's prison wide.

But when you come again, and hold your hands

Dear hands, outstretched to take me, then, the waves,

They turn, full flooded on the fainting sands,

And all the dimpled hollows smile again,

And brimmed with life, the deep mysterious caves

Forget the distant night of lonely pain.