The Sound Of The Sea

The sea awoke at midnight from its sleep,    And round the pebbly beaches far and wide    I heard the first wave of the rising tide    Rush onward with uninterrupted sweep;

A voice out of the silence of the deep,    A sound mysteriously multiplied    As of a cataract from the mountain's side,    Or roar of winds upon a wooded steep.

So comes to us at times, from the unknown    And inaccessible solitudes of being,    The rushing of the sea-tides of the soul;

And inspirations, that we deem our own,    Are some divine foreshadowing and foreseeing    Of things beyond our reason or control.