Evening star., 1915-10-17
MORNING TIDES.

OUTSIDE my high tower windows
W lies the inimitable sea, where the
great sun rises and the light of day
begins.
The long breakers. foam burdened,
but crystal clear beneath their long
parobolic curving. resound increasingly
with their music from the far deep
brought to the land. Between my win
dows and the sea a long sand-stretch,
tipped by bright beach grass lies
naked to the colors of dawn, day and
eventide. .
It Is the farthest length Of that bath
ing beach where scores of people will
soon be running about and dotting up
and down in pleasant gregariousness.
But this stretch will always be aloof
bearing that charm for the eye of the
ina gination which lies ever in wind
swept places. seeming to reach out just
little farther than We ourselves can
see
And it keeps the sea at bay for a dis
tance, running level and parallel with It
in order to shelter. on Its inward side
just under my windows. the last flow
of the river before it turns outward
and mingles with the sea.
So ocean. sand stretch and river run
parallel before me for a space until
with long turning all made of shelv-
ing shoals and ripples Of grace. round
the point of sudden comes the sea-"
The tides are thus before me most
fascinatinglys laid. At low tide the
river is a mere bedway of pooled sands
w
ward currents left exposed by the sea-
gone fullness of the tide. Evidently
also the pooled, sandy river bed Is an
invisible network for the smaller
gulls and terms, with wild cries mid
flight. swoop and settle. their long
| wings waving as they balance half-alit
on the shining, scarcely submerged
surface. All is struggle and flight be-
| tween the creatures of air and their
voiceless prey in the shallow tide
below.
But when the waters are high at
morning. sent forth by the fiat of thai
encircling law. the tide, which in itself
Is vassal to the highest law. then
golden and full. they come, plenteously
!, extending their protection over the
hidden schools of flsh which they are
bearing toward the river. No gull.
are seen The hungry colonies have
melted away like snow. except for {
disappearing few that have become
mere Individual flying dots in thu
broad distant sea world to the east.
Full and free. the sea delivers 1T
burden of filmed fishes to tn,
river, which in turn speeds them VI
between green shores, happy and in
visible to all eyes above the water
They themselves, however, have be
come hunters and devourers of thei
lesser kind. forgetful even of tn
winged shadow of death that so re
Gently lowered above them.
With the tide sweep ones thought
at morning. either hunted as the flshe
or soaring and far-piercing as the Sc;
gulls. or, II not like these. then lik
the tide itself in its inarticulate ebl
and flow, from deep and shallow on
to shoreless deep again. with power o
infinite range yet obedient to the hu
man law of individual experience
These tides of thought surge out
ward over the world to the grea
scene Of war. where the waves of suf
heroism move forward and back as tn
armies. clutched in death struggle them
selves, move like great tides over th'
floor of Europe.
But the deep music and grand ordel
of the sea is not here, for the tides oI
war are governed by the wills of mer
and are not obedient to the law O.
heaven. A. W.