Sonnet
BACK from life’s coasts the ebbing tide had drawn,
The singing tide that brimmed with joy the shore:
The torch of sunset and the blush of dawn
Seemed to have lost their glow forevermore,
There was such silence in the empty sky!
And Nature mocked me, grown so cold and dumb,
And Faith, I thought, had perished utterly,
Nor knew I whence a ray of hope should come;
When, like a royal messenger of good,
Sent to some sad and famine-stricken land,
Across my threshold dark you passed, and stood,
Bearing the keys of heaven in your hand;
And wide the bright, resounding gates you threw!
Tell me, O friend, what I shall do for you!
