Sea-flower

“ All round it stretched and spun,
Laughs, reckless of rough tide and raging ebb,
The loveliest thing that shines against the sun.
O flower of all wind-flowers and sea-flowers,str. 3
Made lovelier by love of the sea
Than thy golden own field-flowers, or tree-flowers
Like foam of the sea-facing tree!
No foot but the seamew's there settles
On the spikes of thine anthers like horns,
With snow-coloured spray for thy petals,
Black rocks for thy thorns. ”

“ No bed of flowers, they say, can be more brilliant than the corals, as you look down on them through the clear sea. Fancy, again, growing among them and crawling over them, strange sea-anemones, shells, star-fish, sea-slugs, and sea-cucumbers with feathery gills, crabs, and shrimps, and hundreds of other animals, all as strange in shape, and as brilliant in colour. You may let your fancy run wild. Nothing so odd, nothing so gay, even entered your dreams, or a poet’s, as you may find alive at the bottom of the sea, in the live flower-gardens of the sea-fairies. ”

“ The water is clear as crystal, and when it is quiet reflects the blue sky and spotless clouds; moss and anemones grow in the limpid depths that have the appearance of a great flower garden, so beautiful is the vegetable growth therein. Sometimes the sea comes roaring to the shore in great foamy billows, making a musical sound like the chiming of many bells, that is very pleasant to hear. ”

“ Oh, deep are my true love's eyes!
There is an orchard beyond the sea,
Its flowers the brown bee sips;
But the stateliest flower is all for me—
Oh, sweet are my true love's lips!
There is an orchard beyond the sea,
Where the soft delights do roam ”

“ The perfume of the flowers, the song of the birds, the wind whispering through the trees, and the far-away echo of the surf on the moonlit strand, all bring joy to the heart; and as we take our way by a forest of noble birch trees, the mysterious and thrilling sounds that come from its depths seem like an invitation to enter and tarry awhile—to “adore, and be still”—to spend an hour of quiet contemplation in yonder glade, where the moon’s soft light clothes every graceful, bending flower in a robe of gleaming splendor. ”

“ Green sea-weed was put down to represent grass, the most wonderful arrangements in the way of cockles, mussels, and limpets took the place of flower-beds, and a few sea-pinks and harebells planted in tins rescued from the sand-bank adorned the window-sill. ”

“ PLANTS OF THE SHORE.
To pick a bunch of gay flowers you would look in the fields and hedge-rows, and not by the sea. Flowers, as you know, love moist soil, and not dry sand; and, like us, they prefer one food to another. Sand they do not like, and salt is a poison to them. Both of these are enemies to plant life.
Also, flowers choose sheltered spots. They do not like rough winds, and the glare of the sun shrivels them up. Yet there are plants with pretty flowers to be found by the sea, and many others with small, dull flowers. These seaside plants have to fight for their lives. ”

“ In another mood the artist paints the low rocks among the reeds, with the breakers playing about them, while the distant sea stretches out to a horizon, with dark, stormy clouds brooding over the solitary waste. A remarkable union of the beauty of land and water is produced by a foreground of brilliant fancy flowers relieved by a scrubby tree in the background, with the faint responsive touch of yellow in the clouds over a calm sea, where gentle motion is only indicated by the little boat floating on its surface. ”

“ Rich and rare seaweeds carpet the floor of the ocean, mingled with delicate flint-sponges and old massive corals; beautiful feather-stars in the form of rooted stone-lilies wave their slender arms; greedy star-fish, grazing sea-urchins, and all their many relations, grope upon the rocks; and sea-snails crawl or float in countless numbers. ”

“ The mahogany colored soil is devoted to vegetable and fruit growing. In spring the well-cultivated trees, including pear, plum, peach, and cherry, burst into a miracle of delicious bloom, making patches of pink as vivid as a sunset sea or others of pure white like snows new-fallen. Such scenes of pastoral beauty enhance its wildness and surpassing grandeur.
The strange beauty of the ocean is comprehended long before one reaches its shores. Mountain peaks are seen from afar, blending imperceptibly with the horizon; at first only their faint outlines are revealed as you gradually approach. ”

“ Simply,
"To see the light That plays upon the grass, to feel (and sigh With perfect pleasure) the mild breeze stir Among the garden roses, red and white, With whiffs of fragrancy."
She gives us the breath of the pines and of the cool, salt seas, "illimitably sparkling." Her ears drink the ripple of the tide, and she stops
"To gaze as one who is not satisfied With gazing at the large, bright, breathing sea." ”

“ Blue was the key-colour of the place. The sky glowed blue and cloudless; the smooth water was gentian blue; seawards there was a huge bar of sand and shingle, heaped high, and running almost the whole way across the arm of the inrushing sea; therefore whether the tide was high or low the waves broke and leaped and swirled on it, so that the sea looked like a great lake, land-locked on three sides, and bounded on the fourth by a tossing, spouting, milk-white cataract of foam, as the great breakers raged and tumbled over the bar of sand. ”

“ The sun gleams on white wave-crests that temper the sea’s blue on some breezy spring day; the sun lies scorching the weed-grown jagged rocks, the sloping slate rocks that slide far down beneath water that [79] grows green near shore; the sun sweetens the oranges, and makes the flowers more luscious of scent, and the fishermen lay their nets. ”

“ Dandelions, buttercups, and clover were not denied to us; though we had no daisies nor violets nor wild roses, no asters, but gorgeous spikes of golden-rod, and wonderful wild morning-glories, whose long, pale ivory buds I used to find in the twilight, glimmering among the dark leaves, waiting for the touch of dawn to unfold and become each an exquisite incarnate blush,—the perfect color of a South Sea shell. They ran wild, knotting and twisting about the rocks, and smothering the loose boulders in the gorges with lush green leaves and pink blossoms. ”

“ Nevertheless, in this sea of human wretchedness and malice there bloomed at times compassion, as a pale flower blooms in a putrid marsh. ”

“ Along the shallow edges the rippling waves appear brightly green—greener than the trees—while beyond this, where the water deepens, the hue is a pearly purple—purer purple than a grape. In fact, the earth does not contain a comparison for the tranquil beauty of this transparent sea. ”

“ Beautiful streams fall down its green precipices into the sea, and the sea itself is of the most brilliant blue. In its depths are growths of pure white corals, which are the homes of fishes of gorgeous colours. ”

“ On the shadowy land things began to take life, plants with great leaves became distinct. They came through a pass in the big, cold sandhills on to the beach. The long waste of foreshore lay moaning under the dawn and the sea; the ocean was a flat dark strip with a white edge. Over the gloomy sea the sky grew red. ”

“ Unwatched, unadmired, save by that Infinite Intelligence that fills the remotest corners of earth and sea with loveliness for Its own delight, the tiny tree strengthened daily, mooring itself ever deeper by spreading rootlets that reached down through the interstices of the reef beneath, and raising higher and higher in perfect beauty its feathery fronds of palest green, the earliest pioneer of the vegetable kingdom in this youthful patch of Mother Earth. ”

“ Overhead the deep blue firmament, with its hosts of bright stars; at my feet, and all around, an ocean of magical light, myriads of fire-flies floating upon the soft still air. To me it was like a scene of enchantment. I could distinguish every blade of grass, every flower, each leaf on the trees, but all in a strange unnatural sort of light, and in altered colours. Tuberoses and asters, prairie roses and geraniums, dahlias and vine branches, began to wave and move, to range themselves in ranks and rows. ”

“ For these, unlike most other seaweeds, have when left dry by the receding tide, no bright colours to attract the eyes; they have lost, not a part only, but the whole of their beauty, and have become for the most part utterly hideous and repulsive, and few people therefore know how lovely they really are. For indeed the sea, which has so many beautiful sights to offer us, can show us few more beautiful than a bed of the large brown seaweeds seen on a bright summer day a few feet below the surface of clear water. ”

“ At the heart of the globe, in the warm waters of the Line, and upon their volcanic bottoms, the sea so superabounds in life that it seems impossible for it to balance its multitudinous creations. Overpassing purely vegetable life, its earliest products are organized, sensitive, living.
But these animals adorn themselves with a singular splendor of botanic beauty, the splendid liveries of an eccentric and most luxuriant Flora. Far as the eye can reach, you see what, judging from the forms and colors, you take for flowers, and shrubs, and plants. ”

“ The dazzling white of the coral branches looks like burnished silver, and the elegant forms and exquisite tints of the many sea-plants produce a series of the most charming pictures the imagination can conceive. ”

“ The dull, threatening clouds are tinted with the pink of rose petals. The sea loses its dull foreboding and like the sky becomes a thing of beauty. Brighter colors follow, red, orange, yellow, and after that, with a low whisper of wavelets the day is ushered in. ”

“ Let grounded sea-weed represent the dark lines twisting through the bed, and the picture is complete. The gentle undulations, as they appear from a distance, the waving grass and bushes, the lights and shadows cast on the surface by passing clouds, are in strict keeping with a beach landscape. ”

“ With rhythmic tides she swept the fore-shoreland,
Whereon I often set my heart’s desire,
Leaving a barren strip of watery sand,
A mirror for the moon’s chaste silver fire.
For I have built a barrier ‘gainst the sea:
No more the moon-swept tide my fruit devours;
The seed is set, and in security,
I watch the silent passage of life’s hours. ”

“ O red sea-weed, O red sea-waves, O hollow baffled roar,
Since one thou hast, O dark dim Sea, why callest thou for more,
My Grief,
For more! In the quiet moonlight the chant, with its long, slow cadences, sung as no other man in the isles could sing it, sounded sweet and remote beyond words to tell. The glittering shine was upon the water of the haven, and moved in waving lines of fire along the stone ledges. Sometimes a fish rose, and split a ripple of pale gold; or a sea-nettle swam to the surface, and turned its blue or greenish globe of living jelly to the moon dazzle. ”

“ A sigh under the flaming blue, a shiver of the sleeping sea, a cool breath as if a door had been swung upon the frozen spaces of the universe, and with a stir of leaves, with the nod of boughs, with the tremble of slender branches the sea breeze struck the coast, rushed up the river, swept round the broad reaches, and travelled on in a soft ripple of darkening water, in the whisper of branches, in the rustle of leaves of the awakened forests. ”

“ "I Have Loved Hours at Sea"
I have loved hours at sea, gray cities,
The fragile secret of a flower,
Music, the making of a poem
That gave me heaven for an hour;
First stars above a snowy hill,
Voices of people kindly and wise,
And the great look of love, long hidden,
Found at last in meeting eyes.
I have loved much and been loved deeply—
Oh when my spirit's fire burns low,
Leave me the darkness and the stillness,
I shall be tired and glad to go. ”

“ Upon a heart like mine,
The rose's leaf, the blue sea-spray,
Would be a safer shrine.
The rose's leaf will fade when blown,
The spray pass from the sea;
But neither are so quickly gone
As love that trusts to me. ”

“ Far out the brown nets sweep, And night begins to creep Across the intolerable mirror of the sea. Twice the nets rise, a-trail with sea-plants brown, Distorted shells, and rocks green-mossed with slime, Nought else. ”

“ Seaweed and kelp wave to us as we pass, long-stemmed sea grasses moving by the action of the waves, like a feather boa worn by some sea nymph, twist and turn like a thing alive; tall, feathery plumes, as white as snow, or as green as emerald, toss to and fro, and make obeisance to old Neptune. ”

“ Here and there the bleached skeletons of these mighty trees, silver-lighted in the sun, some still erect in death, some prone upon the sweet, warm grass that crowns the pink-gray rock, tell with magic brilliancy against the broad sovereignty of impenetrable green that dominates the sea. ”

“ The sea is green here: a light translucent ghostly green, very beautiful and at the same time, back of one’s consciousness—if you examine your feelings—a little mysterious and repellent, suggesting not merely crabs and jelly-fish, but inimical unknown things and infinite perils of the deep, sly, malignant, patiently biding their time. The green sea has not the bluff heartiness of the joyous blue. ”

“ Words cannot convey an idea of what it is under this tropic sun and sky, with the silver-flashing wavelets rippling the surface of the sapphire sea, beneath whose clear warm waters brilliant fishes are darting through the coral groves. ”

“ Down yonder are flowers of every shape and hue, shrubs of every variety of foliage, coral bushes—pink, and white, and even black—rocks covered with medusae of the most brilliant colours an artist could imagine, and patches of white sand, strewn with living shells, each one more lovely to look upon than another. And every bush and shrub and flower is all a-quiver with a strange, indescribable motion, which greatly heightens their magical beauty ”