Watch and wait, the tide is flowing,

Speak not now of past defeat;

Soon the rush of struggling waters On the shore will chafe and beat.

Nought can stay the onward progress,

Nor retard the march of fate;

Baffled oft, degraded never,

Still with patience watch and wait.

All have heard the olden story—

Bootless to recall each wrong;

Ah, we know our joys soon vanished,

And the night of grief is long,

That with sinking hearts, and weary,

We have watched from day to day,

Whilst the billows rolling onwards

Only burst in showers of spray.

I know another ancient fable:

One stood calmly on the strand,

Whilst the snowy–crested waters

Broke upon the silvery sand;

Lingered on, though spent and weary,

Calmly waiting day by day,

But the mournful waste of waters

Only burst in shattered spray.

Many a passer–by derided,

Jeered, reviled with scoffing tongue,

Taunted with insulting laughter,

Mocked the hope to which he clung.

Not for them the higher wisdom,

Battling bravely with defeat,

Their blinded eyes could scan no farther

Than the waves that washed his feet.

Darkly loomed the restless ocean,

With its wealth of buried gold;

Every ripple on its bosom

Over sunken treasures rolled,

Sweeping on o'er coral islands

Gleaming pearl and rainbow gem;

But the deep sea's cruel waters

Void and lonely shone for them!

One by one the climbing billows

Flung their freight upon the shore,

Pallid shells and tinted pebbles

From the ocean's hoarded store;

Worthless dross of scanty value,

Mossy seaweed, tangles brown,

Drift–wood from the foundered vessels, On the slippery beach were strewn.