High Tide

High Tide

By Jean Starr Untermeyer

I edged back against the night

The sea growled assault on the wave-bitten shore.

And the breakers,

Like young, impatient hounds,

Sprang with rough joy in the shrinking sand.

Sprang–but were drawn back slowly,

With a long, relentless pull,

Whimpering into the dark.

Then I saw who held them captive;

And I saw how they were bound

With a long and quivering leash of light,

Held by the moon,

As calm and unsmiling,

she walked the deep fields of the sky.