The Open Sea-Shore of My Soul

 Song
by Alice Meynell 

As the inhastening tide doth roll,
Dear and desired, along the whole
 Wide shining strand, and floods the caves,
 Your love comes filling with happy waves
The open sea-shore of my soul. 

 But inland from the seaward spaces,
None knows, not even you, the places
 Brimmed, at your coming, out of sight,  --
The little solitudes of delight
This tide constrains in dim embraces. 

 You see the happy shore, wave-rimmed,
But know not of the quiet dimmed
 Rivers your coming floods and fills,
 The little pools ’mid happier hills,
My silent rivulets, over-brimmed. 

 What, I have secrets from you? Yes.
But, visiting Sea, your love doth press
 And reach in further than you know,
 And fills all these; and when you go,
There’s loneliness in loneliness.