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Overview
“The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls” is a short poem by the American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, first published in his 1880 collection, Ultima Thule
. Written near the end of Longfellow’s life, this poem meditates on death and the smallness of an individual life. At the heart of the poem is an anonymous traveler who approaches a town from the seashore, then disappears from the town before the morning arrives. All the while, the tides rise and fall, erasing the footprints the traveler left in the sand. Like many of Longfellow’s poems, this one has a unique musicality that makes it a pleasure to read aloud—even if the subject is a bit of a downer.Read a summary & analysis, an analysis of the speaker, and explanations of important quotes from “The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls.”
