Ebb And Flow

EBB AND FLOW
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I walked beside the evening sea,
And dreamed a dream that could not be;
The waves that plunged along the shore
Said only, “Dreamer, dream no more”

Homeward I turned from out the gloom,
That sound I heard not in my room;
But suddenly a sound that stirred
Within my very breast I heard

But still the legions charged the beach,
And rang their battle-cry, like speech!
But changed was the e imperial strain;
It murmured: “Dreamer, dream again!”

It was my heart, that, like a sea
Within my breast beat ceaselessly;
But like the waves along the shore,
It said: “Dream on,” and “Dream no more”
-George William Curtis