“The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow describes a coastal scene. The tide rises, and the tide falls. Its twilight, a bird is calling, and a traveler is leaving the shore, heading for a near town. Now it's dark, the sea is shouting, and the waves erase the traveler's footprints from the shore. Despite this disconsolate perspective, the dawn does come again. There are signs of life everywhere. Horses are ready and raising to go; a hostler is calling out. Sure, the traveler will never return to the shore because he's dead, but the tide rises again, and then… well, the tide falls.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born on February 27, 1807 and died on March 24, 1882. He was an American poet and educator whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline. He was also the first American to translate Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy and was one of the four Fireside Poets from New England.
The mood that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s use of repetition in “the tide rises, the tide falls” help to create is:
Acceptance
By repeating the phrase “the tide rises, the tide falls” the author presents the idea of the inexorability of destiny and life. If one cannot change destiny, therefore one must accept life for what it is.
