Sand Ripples

Down the warm shallows of the crystal tide,

         See how the ripples, while they dance and laugh,

         Write on the sands their golden autograph,—

Made golden by the shimmering rays that glide

Along the sea-floor, caught and flung aside

         By the gay dancers, whence the sunshine half

         Of the bright picture flits like driven chaff,

While all the graven sand-waves still abide.

A thousand centuries hold in living rock

         The lithographs of rippling tides that ran

On shores primeval, trampled by the flock

         Of fleet waves, never by the tread of man;

And all these lines beneath me time may lock

         In his stone volume that no human eye shall scan.