Poems (Ford)/On the Shore

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ON THE SHORE.
Oh, ocean, old ocean, majestic and grand,Thy hoary beard sweeps the brown feet of the land,  And stern is thy voice in its roar;Thy waves in their fury leap madly on high,To war with the tempest that frowns in the sky,  Then sink with a wail on the shore.
We watch the proud ship as across thy broad breastIt beareth far from us the friends we love best,  Perhaps to behold them no more;The deep, sullen voice of thy waves, as they roll,Sweeps like a wild wail of despair o'er the soul  As lonely we stand on the shore.
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Oh, sadly we think on the cold ocean gravesOf those who have left us to cross the wild waves,  And sank 'mid the fierce tempest's roar,But sadder it is to see loved omes from sightFade slowly and sadly away in the night  Of death, while we weep on the shore.
Oh, dreary is life when all trustingly weSend high hopes adrift over life's changeful sea,  That shoreward return nevermore;And sadly we read in the world's chilling frownThat out in the tempest our hopes have gone down,  While we have kept watch on the shore.
Our choicest heart-treasures are, day after day,On Time's restless ocean all floating away,  The waves of oblivion sweep o'er;And so too must we, when our life-work is done,Go down, while the waters roll peacefully on,  Forgotten by those on the shore.
Oh, when the brief day of our earth-life is past,And time, like a shadow, slips from us at last,  From earth may our freed spirits soar,With white wings unstained by their fetters of clay,And, borne on Eternity's billows away,  Find rest on a happier shore.
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