Simply Aground

It is November at Conomo Point in Essex.
The summer has past. Families and visitors have left.
Many of the houses have been closed up until next year.
At low tide, even the sea appears to have journeyed away for the season!

Low-Tide
Written by Edna St. Vincent Millay

These wet rocks where the tide has been,
Barnacled white and weeded brown
And slimed beneath to a beautiful green,
These wet rocks where the tide went down
Will show again when the tide is high
Faint and perilous, far from shore,
No place to dream, but a place to die,—
The bottom of the sea once more.
There was a child that wandered through
A giant's empty house all day,—
House full of wonderful things and new,
But no fit place for a child to play.

Low Tide
Written by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The sea came wooing in mad male fashion;
The strand like a maiden was shy as fair.
He fell at her feet with a cry of passion,
And flung out his arms to clasp her there.

He swore to be true; the bright stars glistened,
And the wind went dallying off with the ships,
While the strand like a maiden leaned and listened
And the sea's wild kisses fell on her lips.

But desolate now in the moonlight's glory
Is lying the pale, deserted strand,
While the sea is telling the same old story
To another shore, in another land.

The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls
Written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The tide rises, the tide falls,
The twilight darkens, the curlew calls;
Along the sea-sands damp and brown
The traveller hastens toward the town,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.

Darkness settles on roofs and walls,
But the sea, the sea in the darkness calls;
The little waves, with their soft, white hands,
Efface the footprints in the sands,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.

The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls
Stamp and neigh, as the hostler calls;
The day returns, but nevermore
Returns the traveller to the shore,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.

Simply Aground

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