With cool, caressing lips of foam,

And murmurs soft, and outstretched hands,

Like glad, tired children nearing home,

O little waves, so soft, so small,

How are you linked, if linked at all,

To those mid-ocean billows strong,

By fierce winds scourged and driven along,

Tossed up to heaven, and then again

Sucked in black gulfs of whelming main;

Never at rest and never spent?

Urged by a speeding discontent,

A seething strife which knows not ease,

Are you akin to such as these?

The little waves they flash and rise,

With laughter in their glancing eyes:

O small, spent waves of surging time,

With soft and intermittent chime,

How are you linked, if linked you be,

To that great dark eternity

Which stretches far beyond our gaze,

And rounds our nights and rounds our days?

We see its darkling billows flow,

But dare not follow where they go,

Nor guess what distance dim and vast

They span to find a shore at last.

O little waves, what share have ye

In this great dim eternity?

The fleet waves answer as they run:

Time and eternity are one;