I met a venerable man, beside
The solitary main:
His look was cast across the tide,
As if he deemed the ocean wide
Would yield its dead again.

“Gray sire! why list ye to the sad
Wild wailing of the sea?
Doth it speak joy in accents mad,
And make thine aged spirit glad,
Yielding a hope to thee?

“Methinks, hoar pilgrim, the bleak breeze
That furrowed brow doth chill:
The kindly hearth should better please,
Than wandering here beside the seas—
Than shivering by the hill.

‘Look! where the sun shines loveliest
On roof and lattice white;
Within are those shall give ye rest,
And of their blessings yield the best,
And shield thee from the night.

‘And see! the gleams no longer roam
Upon the Autumn cloud;
The Twilight glimmers on the foam,
And the wild Heron seeks her home,
And sea-mews shoreward crowd.

‘Then turn ye, aged man, away
From gazing on the deep;
The shadows of the evening gray,
Are gathering fast by cliff and bay,
And the first night-dews weep.’

There was a glistening in his eye,
A faltering in his voice—
‘Stranger! the withered tree,—and dry
—Thou shieldest from the wintry sky,
Thou bid'st old age rejoice.

‘Tis sweet,—the whispering of the leaf
Above the dying year:
But sweeter to the ear of grief,
Those blessed tones that bring relief,
When misery is near.

‘Thou wonderest that I linger,—till
The coming on of night;
Till Evening misty, lone and still,
Wreathes her dim diadem o'er hill,
And round the barren height.

‘But stranger—thou hast surely known,
To part with son or sire,
And when a week—a year—had flown—
Did love, that with your growth hath grown,—
Vanish, and soon expire?

‘Ah! those are wandering far away
Who should be here to bless
Their aged parent's fading day,
And aid him in life's weary way,
Who fails with feebleness.

‘Their course was to some unknown shore,
That lies beyond the sea:
My children it must yet restore,
To bless and to be blest once more,
Though far that country be.

‘Mine eyes have watched the rolling main,
In sunshine and in shade;
When sickles swept the ripened grain,
When casements felt the heavy rain;
When winter filled the glade.

And when the silent, leafless woods
Put on their gorgeous hues;
And Spring sang in the solitudes,
—And there was melody in the floods,
And sweetness fill'd the dews—

‘In Spring's own reign! the joyous hour,
When birds and wildbees throng
Around the sparkling wave, and flower;
And insects, like a twilight shower,
Flit brilliantly along.

‘Then heard I oft the dark seas' dash,
And scanned its unknown verge,
Where the gray birch and gloomy ash
Hang their huge limbs above the clash,
And murmuring of the surge.’

So spake the aged man;—and on
His faltering footstep passed;
His eye—watching the sea alone;
His ear—regardless of the moan,
Of the bleak winter blast!