The Sound of the Sea

The sea awoke at midnight from its sleep,

And round the pebbly beaches far and wide

I heard the first wave of the rising tide

Rush onward with uninterrupted sweep;

A voice out of the silence of the deep,

A sound mysteriously multiplied

As of a cataract from the mountain’s side,

Or roar of winds upon a wooded steep.

So comes to us at times, from the unknown

And inaccessible solitudes of being,

The rushing of the sea-tides of the soul;

And inspirations, that we deem our own,

Are some divine foreshadowing and foreseeing

Of things beyond our reason or control.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Beauty is woken through lines of poetry. Stirring words to fill the soul. But something small inside each line bids us come closer to smell the sweet aroma of truth.

Not much is known about Henry Wadsworth Longfellow by some but to read his poem, “The Sound of the Sea” opens up a vast chasm of understanding between the reader and the artist of words.

The last six lines of Longfellow’s poem is what speaks clearest. The sea is understood, the soul is understood, and a small glimpse of a divine hand upon our lives is portrayed. With true solidity in the proper fashion much is gleaned. We are able to meditate on what matters most. “The rushing of the sea-tides of the soul” escalates on further examination of what the next three lines denote.

Our swelling cares and inspirations, tossed to and fro, as the white crests on the billowing sea, are believed to come so often from our own “ingenious mind.” This though is simply, as only Longfellow can portray, is naught but a “divine foreshadowing and foreseeing of things beyond our reason or control.”

The mighty hand of our Creator is always in complete control. Those beauties of inspirations and distending emotions are graced so often upon us by the ruler of heaven, earth, and the depths, yet we see it not. We place our belief in our own hands and imaginings, play-acting that such emerge from our own marvelous minds. We see it not that all these glories and inspirations are of things beyond our reason or control. This is how it could never come from ourselves, but must and always come from a divine and supernatural working through our Creator. Yet how, without such aid and precise design that our Creator has put into process through us would all of this come about? It would not, it could not. Blessed by the hand of the Almighty our eyes are opened and we are then able to understand what this divine foreshadowing and foreseeing is. We can then, and only then revel perfectly in our inaccessible solitude.