(Liza Voronin/The Epoch Times)
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, the sea in darkness calls;
The little waves, with their soft, white hands
Efface the footprints in the sands,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.
The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls
Stamp and neigh, as the hostler calls;
The day returns, but nevermore
Returns the traveller to the shore.
And the tide rises, the tide falls.
?Time and tide wait for no man.? This saying is brilliantly brought to life in Longfellow?s poem, with its simple yet haunting scene of the waves lapping at the shore, while a mysterious ?traveller? hastens toward the town, never to return.
?The tide rises, the tide falls.? This hypnotic line is repeated four times (five if you count the title), drumming it into our minds like a chant or mantra. The darkness of the ?twilight? welcomes and overwhelms us, as we hear the ?curlew? calling through the air with its piercing, unmistakable cry. And suddenly over the ?sea-sands? we catch our first?and final?glimpse of the traveler.
Where has he come from? From the sea itself or the land? Why does he race for shelter? Is he afraid of the dark closing in? Or is he scared of the waves and their implacable advance?
The ?darkness? does indeed close in, settling on ?roofs and walls,? as if itching to invade our rigid little homes, our rigid little defenses. The night reigns over everyone and everything?except the sea, which cannot be quelled, but calls out continually. Is it imploring the traveler to come back?
If so, the sea is a two-faced god, for it is busy effacing the man?s ?footprints in the sands.? It?s as if he never walked there, never existed.
The image of the ?soft white hands? personifies the ocean for a moment, as if it were a living, conscious being.
Are these ?hands? innocent and childlike, or something more chilling? For me, they have the fearful softness of jellyfish.
The poem concludes with the dawn breaking. In an alliterative fury, the ?steeds in their stalls/ stamp,? full of wildness and vigor. Are they kicking against their confinement?or impatient to greet the ?hostler? or groom who ?calls? to them?
Here we are forced to reflect on the repetition of this word in every stanza. The curlew, the sea, the stableman; they all cry out, as if announcing their existence, or seeking a connection, in a way that defies the disinterest of the universe.
The ?day returns,? as if this were the same day, repeated a million or ten million times. Yet this day has a crucial difference. For, from this hour, the ?traveller? never returns to the ?shore.? Why not?
No answer is given, so we are free to muse and imagine why. Has he passed on to another place, fleeing the waves, or has he passed away? The sea goes on, callous, sublime, and eternal.
Standing back from the poem, and thinking through what we have read, we may sense a symbolic meaning to the scene. For instance, does the ?traveller? represent humanity itself, rushing from the evolutionary sea, eager to find refuge in civilization, only to find that the rhythm of time cannot be outraced and that death will inevitably strike?Is the poem about the terrible isolation of being alive, or more about the essential privacy of our inward self? The rippling rhythm and sing-song rhyme create a mood that seems more peaceful than perplexed.
We are left contemplating the waves with no words and no witty answers, but perhaps with a certain wisdom in our hearts. The waves are dumb, yet what they say is deafening.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807?1882) was an American poet most famous for his work, "The Song of Hiawatha."
wale patagonia progress book durian university of miami university of miami ooma
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.