{"id":3831,"date":"2004-01-19T15:00:30","date_gmt":"2004-01-19T20:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/?p=3831"},"modified":"2023-03-02T14:06:17","modified_gmt":"2023-03-02T19:06:17","slug":"the-tides","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/archives\/3831","title":{"rendered":"“The Tides” \/ The moon is at its full"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"williamL<\/span>aura Ingalls Wilder ends These Happy Golden Years<\/em> with newlyweds Laura and Almanzo sitting in the doorstep of their home on the tree claim, talking about what a beautiful world it is. She includes lines from the song, “Golden Years are Passing By,” from which the title of the book is also taken.<\/p>\n

At the end of Pioneer Girl<\/em> (and before she ruins it by mentioning the $500 debt on the house), Wilder uses a slightly mis-quoted first stanza of William Cullen Bryant’s poem, “The Tides.” She writes: “The moon is at its <\/em>full;” Bryant’s poem uses “at her <\/em>full…”<\/p>\n

“The Tides” was first published in the New York Ledger<\/em> dated July 28, 1860. It was included in a 1876 collection of Bryant’s poetry titled Thirty Poems<\/em>. William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878) was an American poet, attorney, and journalist.<\/p>\n

The Tides<\/p>\n

The moon is at her full, and, riding high,
\n    Floods the calm fields with light.
\nThe airs that hover in the summer sky
\n    Are all asleep to-night.<\/p>\n

There comes no voice from the great woodlands round
\n    That murmured all the day;
\nBeneath the shadow of their bought, the ground
\n    Is not more still than they.<\/p>\n

But ever heaves and moans the restless Deep;
\n    His rising tides I hear,
\nAfar I see the glimmering billows leap;
\n    I see them breaking near.<\/p>\n

Each wave springs upward, climbing toward the fair
\n    Pure light that sits on high–
\nSprings eagerly, and faintly sinks, to where
\n    The mother waters lie.<\/p>\n

Upward again it swells; the moonbeams show,
\n    Again, its glimmering crest;
\nAgain it feels the fatal weight below,
\n    And sinks, but not to rest.<\/p>\n

Again and yet again; until the Deep
\n    Recalls his brood of waves;
\nAnd, with a sullen moan, abashed, they creep
\n    Back to his inner caves.<\/p>\n

Brief respite! they shall rush from that recess
\n    With noise and tumult soon,
\nAnd fling themselves, with unavailing stress,
\n    Upward toward the placid moon.<\/p>\n

Oh, restless Sea, that, in thy prison here,
\n    Does struggle and complain;
\nThrough the slow centuries yearning to be near
\n    To that fair orb in vain;<\/p>\n

The glorious source of light and heat must warm
\n    Thy billows from on high,
\nAnd change them to the cloudy trains that form
\n    The curtains of the sky.<\/p>\n

Then only may they leave the waste of brine
\n    In which they welter here,
\nAnd rise above the hills of earth, and shine
\n    In a serener sphere.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"
\nThe moon is at its full<\/strong> (PG)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1860 William Cullen Bryant poem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8001,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[627],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3831"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3831"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3831\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15230,"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3831\/revisions\/15230"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}