"Ebb-Tide"

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 Ella Higginson's When the Birds Go North Again (1898).