Tide-Water.
Through many-winding valleys far inland,
A maze among the convoluted hills,
Of rocks up-piled, and pines on either hand,
And meadows ribbanded with silver rills,
Faint, mingled-up, composite sweetnesses
Of scented grass and clover, and the blue
Wild-violet hid in muffling moss and fern,
Keen and diverse another breath cleaves through,
Familiar as the taste of tears to me,
As on my lips, insistent, I discern
The salt and bitter kisses of the sea.
The tide sets up the river; mimic fleetnesses
Of little wavelets, fretted by the shells
And shingle of the beach, circle and eddy round,
And smooth themselves perpetually: there dwells
A spirit of peace in their low murmuring noise
Subsiding into quiet, as if life were such
A struggle with inexorable bound,<...