Tidiness

“ Along the dry shore of an ancient sea when the tide was out, rain-drops fell on the sand and dust. Tides often come in with a rush, in wild waves driven by the wind, but when there is no wind and no waves rolling in from far - 245 - distant storms the tide may overspread such delicate things as the imprint of rain-drops with a thin protecting film of mud. ”

“ I look out of my window and see the tide in its endless quest, racing up and racing down the river; every day, every night, the year through, for a thousand, for a million ears it goes on, and no one is the wiser, yet the tides have played their part in the history of the globe. But nature's cradle keeps rocking after her child has left it. Only the land benefits from the rain, and yet it rains upon the sea as upon the land. ”

“ And when the winds are low, and when the tides are still, And the round moon rises inland over the naked hill, And o'er her parching seams the dry cloud-shadows pass, And dry along the land-rim lie the shadows of thin grass, Then aches her soul with longing to launch and sink away Where the fine silts lift and settle, and sea-things drift and stray, To make the port of Last Desire, and slumber with her peers In the tide-wash rocking softly through the unnumbered years. ”

“ The very bottom of the deep bays near shore—dark and eternally silent, prisoned under the restless waste of waters—is thickly carpeted with strange and many-coloured forms of animal and vegetable life. But the beaches and tide-pools over which the moon-urged 130 tides hold sway in their ceaseless rise and fall, teem with marvels of Nature’s handiwork, and every day are restocked and replanted with new living objects, both arctic and tropical offerings of each heaving tidal pulse. ”

“ And so we notice that for about six hours from the time when the tide begins to rise, the sea gains upon the land, either stealing on, step by step, over the pebbly beach, and creeping tip the mouths of the rivers, or, when the winds are abroad, rushing over the sand, and dashing against the rocks, as if it would sweep all before it. No power upon earth can stop that steady onward march of wave upon wave, until the unseen boundary is reached. ”

“ The shore-birds cheerily call, the while They dart and circle in merry rout,— The face of the ocean seems to smile And the earth to laugh, when the tide goes out. When the tide goes out, as the years roll by, And Life sweeps on to the outer bar, And I feel the chill of the depths that lie Beyond the shoals where the breakers are, I will not rail at a kindly Fate, Or welcome Age with a peevish pout, But still, with a heart of Youth, await The final wave, when the tide goes out. ”

“ Our days are else in vain, and ne'er will bound
The "Barge of Time" upon the heavenly way.
But soon the ripple of an adverse tide,—
Whose darkling bitter waters seemed to stay
The prow,—twined like a sea-weed growth the oars;
A tide that hies forever from the shores
I sought, and with its soft caresses, wide
And far, bears hapless wanderers away.
Yet gallant are the boats that drift along;
Proud are the hearts that float where flows the tide. ”

“ There is no ebb in nature without answering flow.
⁠When summer's tide of green
⁠Retreats to depths unseen
And earth is bare beneath the usurping snow,
None doubt that from its unplumbed levels deep
⁠The tides of spring will creep
To submerge the world again in emerald seas.
So shall life's flood retire from its estuaries. ”

“ At low tide for miles out one sees only a vast plain, moist, strewn with shells, and intersected here and there with deep hollows and shifting sandbanks; but when the tide changes, and long before the waters appear in sight, are heard tremendous sounds, crash after crash, thunder after thunder, of the advancing tide, which comes in leaping like a huge monster, thirty to forty feet high, and breaks with terrific violence against the shore, carrying everything before it. ”

“ Everything gone inward and downward from surface and summit, Nature at low tide. In its time will come the height of summer, when the tides of life rise to the tree-tops, or be dashed as silvery insect spray all but to the clouds. ”

“ No hope, I say, for at the height of the tide, or when such a north-easter is blowing, the water reaches and climbs far up the cliff foot. But the tide is falling now. We can walk for miles along these sands, which we see stretching like a strip of yellow light between the blue of the sea and the darker shadows cast by the rocks themselves. Let us go down and see the “mighty being”—who, for all he wears so smooth a face now, toying with the shore yonder, is yet ”

“ However still the day, you can hear the deep breathing of the tides, sighing as they sleep, and a mystical murmur running through the swish of the breakers, that is the song of the deep sea waves, riding steadily in shore, ruffled but in no wise impeded by the west winds that vainly press them in the contrary direction. ”

“ I have often been out there in a dead calm at the slack of the tide; and a strange place it is, with the sea swirling and combing up and boiling like the cauldrons of a linn, and now and again a little dancing mutter of sound as though the Roost were talking to itself. But when the tide begins to run again, and above all in heavy weather, there is no man could take a boat within half a mile of it, nor a ship afloat that could either steer or live in such a place. ”

“ THE TIDES Through rush and reed The long, strong tides recede, Jostle and surge, And toss and urge, And foam and merge, Where lily roots shine bright like bronzen brede. "Haste! haste!" That is their cry; Back to the mother waste They fleet, they fly, Again to be embraced— Again to be a part Of that great heart! As set the tides, so we, After the stress and roar Along life's shore, Shall one day set toward the eternal sea!
A SEA ROVER The breakers dash, the breakers boom, Upon the beaches ceaselessly ”

“ Why, if it was only the fog, I wouldn’t mind; but, mind you, there’s the tides. The flood tide ’ll be coming along soon, and then where’ll we go to? We may get twisted up into an eddy, and find ourselves on Cape Split; or we may glide up to Windsor, or get thrown on the rocks, goodness ony knows where. There’s no knowin’ where these tides may take it into their blessed hearts to drift us to. ”

“ Now, hermit of the woodland, fill anew
The cool, green cup of air with harmony,
And we will drink the wine of love with you.
May, 1908.
TURN O' THE TIDE The tide flows in to the harbour,—
The bold tide, the gold tide, the flood o' the sunlit sea,—
And the little ships riding at anchor,
Are swinging and slanting their prows to the ocean, panting
To lift their wings to the wide wild air,
And venture a voyage they know not where,—
To fly away and be free! ”

“ Things being placed aright, out they pull on the heaving sea—the incoming tide having been looked to beforehand, so that at high tide the lighted lanterns may be set afloat and go drifting at their will with the falling flood. ”

“ The tidal movement of the ocean, deep-sea currents, and the agitation of inland waters by the wind, lift up the sands strewn over the bottom by diluvial streams or sent down by mountain torrents, and throw them up on dry land, or deposit them in sheltered bays and nooks of the coast—for the flowing is stronger than the ebbing tide, the affluent than the refluent wave. ”

“ Perhaps, if the tide was heavy and at its flood, and a breaker heavier than the rest breached shorewards in a white wall of seething foam, and crashed and rattled together the loose coral slabs that marked the line of high-water mark, the silent, dreaming man would spring to his feet with a loud warning call. ”

“ Once more the running stream is stopped, and slowly the muddy tide rises higher and higher, obliterates the lowlands and creeps slowly up the sides of the high ground, around the skirts of its pygmy mountain-chains, and rolls restored amid groups of remade islets. ”

“ They are lashed by foaming waves, and the echoes peal like laughter among them; the tide brings them all it has; the morning sun lights them up, top after top, like beacons of its way out to sea, and leaves them again at night, lingeringly, one by one ”

“ And soon the tide began to slacken, and the craft lying at anchor to swing, and presently they had all swung round, and the ships that were taking advantage of the new tide to get up to the Pool, began to crowd upon us in a fleet, and we kept under the shore, as much out of the strength of the tide now as we could, standing carefully off from low shallows and mud-banks. ”

“ Here, alone with the sky and the clouds and the crags, the blue and the gray and the gold, the incoming tide of new power filled him as completely and quietly as the sea rises in serene pools back of sand dunes on the coast; protected as they are, there is no visible incoming of the tides; the water simply wells up and up till the pools are filled to their sedgy brims . ”

“ I’ll go on deck and have another look at the situation. My private opinion is, however, that if they’re coming after us, they’d better come. The tide’s getting higher every minute; and if they get here after we’ve fastened her to the shore, and got her high and dry, they’ll have to wait for twelve good hours before they can get her to float off again,—not to speak of spring tides. Do you know, Bart, if this is spring tide? ”

“ You can row for miles at high tide—one view after another unfolding of wooded bays, of towering snow peaks mirrored in still waters, of forest rolling away into blue distance with great patches of scarlet on its outer fringe, and overhead soft skies with clouds for ever sliding from the sea to the mountains. ”

“ I cross my arms on my breast, And all is peace within. THE TIDE RISES, THE TIDE FALLS 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 in the darkness calls and calls; The little waves, with their soft, white hands, Efface the footprints in the sands, And the tide rises, the tide falls. ”

“ Flows one unebbing tide, by love and pity fed.
God’s heart is satisfied, man’s eyes are upward led,
And o’er the desert wide, the dew that’s downward shed
Drawn from that flowing tide, forms flowers white and red. ”

“ Those who do so are well acquainted with the daily ebb and flow which we call the tides. Even the children with their spades and buckets know how the flowing tide will fill their moats dug in the sand and inundate their mimic castles. ”

“ Pretty soon I could push the swamp grass out of the way and swim a little. Oh, cracky, I was thankful for that tide! I knew it would keep on coming when it once started ’cause the tide never goes back on you. Of course it goes back, but you know what I mean. Sometimes if you’re on a hike and telling time by the sun it’ll go under a cloud, or sometimes if you’re lost and following the stars, it’ll cloud up and you can’t see them any more. ”

“ But the tide was still rising, and very soon the biggest waves began to come quite over the rocks, rolling the big beasts over and even washing them off, and it angered them when the waves struck them, and they roared aloud, and by and by they began to go away, some disappearing beneath the water, others with heads above the surface swimming away out into the open sea, until all were gone. ”

“ When the tide advances over a sea-beach on a calm and sunny day, and its tiny ripples enter, at various points, the clear shallow pools which the preceding tide had left behind, the little wavelets run and climb and cross each other, and thus form a lovely chasing, which has its counterpart in the lines of light converged by the ripples upon the sand underneath. When waves are skilfully generated in a vessel of mercury, and a strong light reflected from the surface of the metal is received upon a screen, the most beautiful effects may be observed. ”

“ All day long, from morn to night, a mighty human tide swells and surges with almost turbulent haste all through these narrow streets. One lingers and watches daily as the never-ceasing throng pours on, fascinated as by the constantly-recurring beat of the breakers upon the sea. ”

“ A heavy flood tide was setting through it against the northeast gale, which raised a heavy sea. The waves reared as if about to fall backward, while the wind tore off their white curling tops and carried them away in the form of gray scud. Never before have I seen the sea in so hearty and exhilarating a motion. ”

“ At low tide the green-gray and blackened bulk of the larger boulders was exposed, cluttered with shell and weed-growth, and making the scene even more somber than when the tide had thrust itself up and around the sand, nosing between rocks and overspreading like a sentient invader. ”

“ When you express your surprise at the greenness of a Provincetown garden on the beach, in a dry season, they will sometimes tell you that the tide forces the moisture up to them. It is an interesting fact that low sand-bars in the midst of the ocean, perhaps even those which are laid bare only at low tide, are reservoirs of fresh water at which the thirsty mariner can supply himself. ”

“ And just as in the history of the position of the shell on the beach we should certainly ascribe great importance to the tides and winds, so in the quality of each individual character we should find corresponding vital tides and winds, as regular and lawful as those of the ocean. ”

“ It is the tide of emotion, that some one day in life begins to rise in the human heart,—and, oh, what a strange, wondrous thing it is! There are Bay-of-Fundy tides, and the uniform tides, and the tideless waters that rest around Pacific Isles ”

“ As we stand upon the seashore while the tide is coming in, one wave reaches up the beach far higher than any previous one, then recedes, and for some time none that follows comes up to its mark, but after a while the whole sea is there and beyond it. ”