As vessels starting from ports thousands of miles apart pass
close to each other in the naked breadth of read more

As vessels starting from ports thousands of miles apart pass
close to each other in the naked breadth of the ocean, nay,
sometimes even touch in the dark.

Like driftwood spares which meet and pass
Upon the boundless ocean-plain,
So on the sea of life, read more

Like driftwood spares which meet and pass
Upon the boundless ocean-plain,
So on the sea of life, alas!
Man nears man, meets, and leaves again.

As drifting logs of wood may haply meet
On ocean's waters surging to and fro,
And having read more

As drifting logs of wood may haply meet
On ocean's waters surging to and fro,
And having met, drift once again apart,
So, fleeting is the intercourse of men.
E'en as a traveler meeting with the shade
Of some o'erhung tree, awhile reposes,
Then leaves its shelter to pursue his ways,
So men meet friends, then part with them for ever.

In life there are meetings which seem
Like a fate.

In life there are meetings which seem
Like a fate.

Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing,
Only a signal shown and a distant read more

Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing,
Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness:
So on the ocean of life, we pass and speak one another,
Only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,

The joy of meeting not unmixed with pain.

The joy of meeting not unmixed with pain.

But now will canker sorrow eat my bud
And chase the native beauty from his cheek,
And read more

But now will canker sorrow eat my bud
And chase the native beauty from his cheek,
And he will look as hollow as a ghost,
As dim and meagre as an ague's fit,
And so he'll die; and rising so again,
When I shall meet him in the court of heaven
I shall not know him.

And soon, too soon, we part with pain,
To sail o'er silent seas again.

And soon, too soon, we part with pain,
To sail o'er silent seas again.

Two lives that once part, are as ships that divide
When, moment on moment, there rushes between
read more

Two lives that once part, are as ships that divide
When, moment on moment, there rushes between
The one and the other, a sea;--
Ah, never can fall from the days that have been
A gleam on the years that shall be!