The Sound Of The Sea

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

    The sea awoke at midnight from its sleep,
        And round the pebbly beaches far and wide
        I heard the first wave of the rising tide
        Rush onward with uninterrupted sweep;
    A voice out of the silence of the deep,
        A sound mysteriously multiplied
        As of a cataract from the mountain's side,
        Or roar of winds upon a wooded steep.
    So comes to us at times, from the unknown
        And inaccessible solitudes of being,
        The rushing of the sea-tides of the soul;
    And inspirations, that we deem our own,
        Are some divine foreshadowing and foreseeing
        Of things beyond our reason or control.