Somewhere I read, in an old book whose name 
Is gone from me, I read that when the days 
Of a man are counted, and his business done, 
There comes up the shore at evening, with the tide, 
To the place where he sits, a boat? 
And in the boat, from the place where he sits, he sees, 
Dim in the dusk, dim and yet so familiar, 
The faces of his friends long dead; and knows 
They come for him, brought in upon the tide, 
To take him where men go at set of day. 
Then rising, with his hands in theirs, he goes 
Between them his last steps, that are the first 
Of the new life?and with the ebb they pass, 
Their shaken sail grown small upon the moon. 
Often I thought of this, and pictured me 
How many a man who lives with throngs about him, 
Yet straining through the twilight for that boat 
Shall scarce make out one figure in the stern, 
And that so faint its features shall perplex him 
With doubtful memories?and his heart hang back. 

But others, rising as they see the sail 
Increase upon the sunset, hasten down, 
Hands out and eyes elated; for they see 
Head over head, crowding from bow to stern, 
Repeopling their long loneliness with smiles, 
The faces of their friends; and such go forth 
Content upon the ebb tide, with safe hearts. 

But never to worker summoned when his day was done 
Did mounting tide bring in such freight of friends 
As stole to you up the white wintry shingle 
That night while they that watched you thought you slept. 
Softly they came, and beached the boat, and gathered 
In the still cove under the icy stars, 
Your last-born, and the dear loves of your heart, 
And all men that have loved right more than ease, 
And honor above honors; all who gave 
Free-handed of their best for other men, 
And thought their giving taking: they who knew 
Man's natural state is effort, up and up? 
All these were there, so great a company 
Perchance you marvelled, wondering what great ship 
Had brought that throng unnumbered to the cove 
Where the boys used to beach their light canoe 
After old happy picnics? 

But these, your friends and children, to whose hands, 
Committed, in the silent night you rose 
And took your last faint steps? 
These led you down, O great American, 
Down to the Winter night and the white beach, 
And there you saw that the huge hull that waited 
Was not as are the boats of the other dead, 
Frail craft for a brief passage; no, for this 
Was first of a long line of towering transports, 
Storm-worn and ocean-weary every one, 
The ships you launched, the ships you manned, the ships 
That now, returning from their sacred quest 
With the thrice-sacred burden of their dead, 
Lay waiting there to take you forth with them, 
Out with the ebb tide, on some farther quest.