The little creek which yesterday I saw
Ooze through the sedges, and each brackish vein
That sluiced the marsh, now filled and then again
Sucked dry to glut the sea's unsated maw,
All ebb and flow by the same rhythmic law
That times the beat of the Atlantic main—
They also fastened to the swift moon's train
By unseen cords that no less strongly draw.
So, poet, may thy life's small tributary
Threading some bitter marsh, obscure, alone,
Feel yet one pulse with the broad estuary
That bears an emperor's fleets through half a zone:
May wait upon the same high luminary
And pitch its voice to the same ocean's tone.