Fugitive Poetry. 1600–1878/The River and the Tide

The River and the Tide.

On the bank of a river was seated one day
  An old man, and close by his side,
Was a child who had paused from his laughing and play
To gaze at the stream, as it hurried away
  To the sea, with the ebb of the tide.

"What see you, my child, in the stream, as it flows
  To the ocean, so dark and deep?
Are you watching how swift, yet how silent it goes?
Thus hurry our lives, till they sink in repose,
  And are lost in a measureless sleep.

"Now listen, my boy! You are young, I am old,
  And yet like two rivers are we;
Though the flood-tide of youth from Time's ocean is rolled,
Yet it ebbs all too soon, and its waters grow cold
  As it creeps back again to the sea."

"But the river returns!" cried the boy, while his eyes
  Gleamed bright as the water below.
"Ah! yes," said the old man; "but time, as it flies,
Turns the tide of our life, and it never can rise."
  "But first," said the boy, "it must flow."

Thus, watching its course from the bank of the stream,
  They mused, as they sat side by side;
Each read different tales in the river's bright gleam—
One borne with the flow of a glorious dream,
  And one going out with the tide.