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The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls

Decent Essays

“The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls” and “A Psalm of Life” are both poems written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882). “A Psalm of Life” was published in 1838, when Wadsworth was a younger man and not long after the death of his first wife. In 1879, near the end of his life, Longfellow wrote “The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls.” By that time, longfellow had witnessed the death of another wife. These two poems, although are similar and written by the same person, they are also very different. One difference between the two are their themes. “The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls” has the themes of man and the natural world and death. The rising and falling of the tide is the speaker’s way of describing the eternal cycles and rhythms of nature. “The poem takes place at twilight (the death of the day), a traveler is seen leaving the shore for the last time (he is dead by the end of the poem), and the speaker keeps …show more content…

In “The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls,” the tides, the darkness, and the calling are all symbols. The tides symbolize a natural world that is everlasting. The darkness is not only there literally but figuratively. It is a primary symbol of death and the transition from mortal life to something else. The calling in the poem is basically a warning that the traveler will be dead and at the end the hostler calls, which could be the speaker’s way of saying life goes on because the hostler is still alive. In “A Psalm of Life,” however, the “mournful numbers” and footprints. “The word ‘numbers’ symbolizes the rigid, authoritarian, and b;eak outlook at the books of the Old Testament espouse. The young man refuses to accept this worldview, preferring to be hopeful and optimistic.” (Gradesaver.com) The footprints in the poem are a symbol of the mark one leaves on the world. “They indicate that someone has been here before, transverse in the past that one is currently transfer see.”

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