Minor Poems

Break, break, break

Break, break, break,
 On thy cold gray stones, O sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
 The thoughts that arise in me.

O well for the fisherman’s boy
 That he shouts with his sister at play!
O well for the sailor lad
 That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on,
 To the haven under the hill;
But O for the touch of a vanished hand,
 And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break,
 At the foot of thy crags, O sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
 Will never come back to me.

          Alfred Tennyson.