Helen Hunt Jackson

O patient shore, that canst not go to meet Thy love, the restless sea, how comfortest Thou all thy loneliness? Art thou at rest, When, loosing his strong arms from round thy feet, He turns away? Know’st thou, however sweet That other shore may be, that to thy breast He must return? And when in sterner test He folds thee to a heart which does not beat, Wraps thee in ice, and gives no smile, no kiss, To break long wintry days, still dost thou miss Naught from thy trust? Still, wait, unfaltering, The higher, warmer waves which leap in spring? O sweet, wise shore, to be so satisfied! O heart, learn from the shore! Love has a tide!

Along Ancona’s hills the shimmering heat, A tropic tide of air with ebb and flow Bathes all the fields of wheat until they glow Like flashing seas of green, which toss and beat Around the vines. The poppies lithe and fleet Seem running, fiery torchmen, to and fro To mark the shore. The farmer does not know That they are there. He walks with heavy feet, Counting the bread and wine by autumn’s gain, But I,—I smile to think that days remain Perhaps to me in which, though bread be sweet No more, and red wine warm my blood in vain, I shall be glad remembering how the fleet, Lithe poppies ran like torchmen with the wheat.

I do not know if, climbing some steep hill, Through fragrant wooded pass, this glimpse I bought, Or whether in some mid-day I was caught To upper air, where visions of God’s will In pictures to our quickened sense fulfil His word. But this I saw. A path I sought Through wall of rock. No human fingers wrought The golden gates which opened sudden, still, And wide. My fear was hushed by my delight. Surpassing fair the lands; my path lay plain; Alas, so spell-bound, feasting on the sight, I paused, that I but reached the threshold bright, When, swinging swift, the golden gates again Were rocky wall, by which I wept in vain.