The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls Death Quotes

The speaker lets us know right away that this will be a poem about death. "Twilight," "darkness" and "falls" all establish a somber, melancholy mood.

Okay, so the speaker tells us again that the tide rises, and that the tide falls. Even though the falling of the tide is a metaphor for death, we get the sense that this isn't so bad, or rather, that dying is a natural part of life, as natural as the ebbing of the tide.

The opening lines of the second stanza echo the opening lines of the poem, and once again reiterate that this is a poem about the darkness we will all experience at the end of life: death. The settling of darkness on the roofs and walls reminds us that the darkness will also soon be settling on the traveler.

Well this is an interesting little part. The waves' soft white hands make death seem like a gentle, peaceful process, and yet the fact that the traveler's footprints are erased suggests that, once we die, all trace of our existence is completely and totally eradicated—yikes.

As if we didn't know already, the traveler is dead, never to return to the shore we saw him walking along in the first stanza. Bummer. The contrast between the traveler and the "day" is striking. Nature can regenerate itself, but once humans are dead, they're dead.