Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born on February 27, 1807 and died on March 24, 1882. He was an American poet and educator whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline. He was also the first American to translate Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy and was one of the four Fireside Poets from New England.
“The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow describes a coastal scene. The tide rises, and the tide falls. Its twilight, a bird is calling, and a traveller is leaving the shore, heading for a near town. Now it's dark, the sea is shouting, and the waves erase the traveller's footprints from the shore. Despite this disconsolate perspective, the dawn does come again. There are signs of life everywhere. Horses are ready and raising to go; a hostler is calling out. Sure, the traveller will never return to the shore because he's dead, but the tide rises again, and then… well, the tide falls.
In this excerpt from “The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls” by Henry Wadsworth the mood that these two lines serve to create is:
confusion