Explore "Sung to a Friend" by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The tide is rising, rising / Out of the infinite sea; / From ripple, to wave, to billow, / Past beryl and gold and crimson, / A prism of perfect splendor; / What shall the white surf be?
The sacred tide is rising, / Rising for you and me. / Defiant across the breaker, / Wave unto wave must answer, / The sea to the shore will follow; / When shall the great flood be?
The tide must turn falling, falling / Back to the awful sea. / Thus far shalt thou go, no farther. / The color sinks to the shadow, / The paean sobs into silence, / Where shall the ebb-line be?
By the weeds left blazing, beating / Like heart-throbs of the sea, / By the law of the land and the ocean, / By the Hand that holdeth the torrent, / I summon the tide eternal / To flow for you and me!