Classic Poem

Last night a storm was on the sea;
The wreckage drifts ashore;
Come walk along the beach with me,
And hear the breakers roar.

What soul their sorrow understands?
What eye can trace their path?
They fling themselves upon the sands,
And foam with fear or wrath.

The shore receives them, patient, dumb,
Nor trembles at their shocks;
But lifts to meet them, as they come,
Its great, insensate rocks.

I look across the troubled sea,
And seem an atom, tost
To wandering winds, and what to me
Is joy, if kept or lost?

And what if wearied on the way,
I faint and fall and die;
Would any miss, till judgment-day,
So small a thing as I?

Last night a storm was on the sea;
The wreckage drifts ashore;
Come walk along the beach with me,
And hear the breakers roar.

What soul their sorrow understands?
What eye can trace their path?
They fling themselves upon the sands,
And foam with fear or wrath.

The shore receives them, patient, dumb,
Nor trembles at their shocks;
But lifts to meet them, as they come,
Its great, insensate rocks.

I look across the troubled sea,
And seem an atom, tost
To wandering winds, and what to me
Is joy, if kept or lost?

And what if wearied on the way,
I faint and fall and die;
Would any miss, till judgment-day,
So small a thing as I?