Haven

“ Rather let us believe that we have in death a haven and refuge prepared for us. I would that we might sail thither with widespread sails; if not, if contrary winds shall blow us back, still we must needs reach, though it may be somewhat late, the haven where we would be. ”

“ For there shall be one fold and one Shepherd, and all nations shall be brought to acknowledge that He alone “restoreth our souls, and leadeth us in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.” On the left hand of the hill, as I advanced eastward, and immediately under its declivity, extended a beautiful tract of land intersected by a large arm of the sea, which (as the tide was fast flowing in) formed a broad lake or haven of three miles in length. Woods, villages, cottages, and churches, surrounded it in most pleasing variety of prospect. ”

“ Being delighted with this smell, and hoping for better fortunes after our long labours, we got within a little of the isle, in which we found many havens on every side, not subject to overflowing, and yet of great capacity, and rivers of clear water emptying themselves easily into the sea, with meadows and herbs and musical birds, some singing upon the shore, and many upon the branches of trees, a still and gentle air compassing the whole country. ”

“ The distant ocean and sea - port view is exchanged for one near at hand. Though still sixty miles away, it seems to rise at your very feet. How superbly it lifts its shining cone into the shining heavens! ”

“ Every lofty mountain, every majestic river, every craggy cliff and frowning headland along the coast, stand as representative objects, sacred to the memory of the past, and the great deeds that have been there performed. ”

“ In determining the courses of great rivers, Nature has determined the first highways of trade and fixed the sites of many cities. Nearly all the considerable towns founded more than three centuries ago owe their origin either to their possessing good havens on the sea-coast, or to the natural strength of their position on a defensible hill, or to their standing close to a navigable river. ”

“ Having found a good haven and being brought safely in sight of land, they fell upon their knees and blessed the God of Heaven who had brought them over the vast and furious ocean, and delivered them from all the perils and miseries of it, again to set their feet upon the firm and stable earth, their proper element. ”

“ They have long since passed away, but the same hills stand, the same rivers flow along the same channels, the same ocean washes the ancient shores, the same skies look down upon those fields and waters, and with these aspects and objects of nature we associate all that is great and heroic in the history of the people that once dwelt among those hills, and along those shores. ”

“ And where you come uppon the sea, or navigable rivers, you are by intersection to observe the wideness of the harboures mouth, biggness and distance of islands or rocks, the place of the bar in barred havens ”

“ The valley between is rich in every fruit and flower and shrub. Here is a river gliding along, fringed with heavy willows, larger and compacter of leaf than their temperate-zone brother, but of the same bending and hugging nature. ”

“ Let them go their ways unquestioned, let them come, unquestioned still,
I shall wait them, I shall welcome, come they when or whence they will;
Am I not the Haven-Mother? ’T is a mother’s part to bide,
To be ready, to be tender, when the turning of the tide
Brings the rovers homeward, weary of their strivings with the sea,
To the sweet surcease that waits them in the port where they would be.
Let them roam to north or southward—wheresoe’er their ways are cast,
To my bosom backward turning when their journeying is past,
They shall gleam within the offing, and be mine again at last! ”

“ But where it can be, or how, are conundrums too hard for us. The plains are deserted, and we begin to wriggle in and out the spurs. We climb the hill slightly and softly, our good genius of the road still keeping off the stones. ”

“ Now a mile or so from the shore there was an island, very fair and fertile, but no man dwells there or tills the soil, and in the island a harbour where a ship may be safe from all winds, and at the head of the harbour a stream falling from a rock, and whispering alders all about it. ”

“ Far, far beyond the white man's reach,
Was this lone spot, in years gone by.
The lofty bank, and level plain,
With wide-mouth'd maitland stretch'd to view,
Look'd out upon the inland main,
And back, where virgin forests grew.
No harbor then, nor water-break,
Made by the mind and hand of man,
But fast into the rolling lake,
In nature's course, the river ran. ”

“ But if you cast your eyes over yonder magnificent bay, where vessels bearing flags of all nations are at anchor, and then let your vision sweep past and over the islands to the outlets beyond, where the quiet ocean lies, bordered with fog-banks that loom ominously at the boundary-line of the horizon, you will see a picture of marvellous beauty; for the coast scenery here transcends our own sea-shores, both in color and outline. ”

“ There was a harbour, a harbour that will hold a fleet, a great sheet of blue water sparkling in the sunshine, fringed all round with the riotous green of the tropics, and behind were the Blue Mountains, a glorious setting for man's untidy handiwork. ”

“ If you want to surrender yourself wholly to the sea influence—to study it and assimilate your mind to all its phases—you should choose, as was my fortune, a little fishing town, on the shore, with a sheltered bay to the south and west and the ocean eastward. Here you will find life stripped of care and conventionality; idealized, seductive, and illusive, the days swinging from charm to charm, like bubbles in the sunlight. ”

“ It is a long following of a dry river-bed, crossing and recrossing its loose rocks many times under a sultry sun, before we strike a rattling brook of delightful water, and a hill-side that looked as if covered with an apple-orchard, and must certainly reveal a white house amidst its green foliage. ”

“ In distant quarters of the globe, the natives of other zones and climes hasten upon his errands; swift ships traverse the seas for him; the furs of the extreme North, the rich woods and spices of the tropics, the silks of India, the pearls and gems of the East—whatever is costly, and curious, and rare, whatever can contribute to the luxury and the pride of man—these are his, and for him. ”

“ How wonderfully human nature adapts itself to its condition! We go from mountain to sea, from cell to city, with a zest for each that seems insatiate. But only one offers its attractions at a time. We can not at once sail the sea and climb the mountain, unless it be a mountain wave. ”

“ A splendid harbor frames itself out of the mellow uncertainty—a harbor whereof the long white arms are stretched out to welcome the commerce of all the known world; and under the white fronts, and at the temple steps of that ancient city, Commerce poured into the lap of Luxury every commodity that could gratify cupidity or minister to human pleasure. ”

“ But great is the charm of the River, so soft is the sigh of the reeds,
They give me, long sleepless from passion, the peace that my weariness needs.
I float on the breast of my River, and startle the birds on the edge,
To land on a newly found island, a boat that is caught in the sedge,
The rays of the sun are still level, not yet has the heat of the day
Deflowered the mists of the morning, that linger in delicate grey.
What land was his dwelling whose fancy first gave unto Paradise birth?
He never had swum in my River, or else he had fixed it on earth! ”

“ Two large rivers, which take their rise in mountains two or three hundred miles to the east, and run through a country unsurpassed for soil and climate, empty themselves into the harbor. The country around affords admirable timber for ship-building. ”

“ Shall the mighty rivers, poured out by the hand of nature, as channels of communication between numerous nations, roll their waters in sullen silence and eternal solitude to the deep? Have hundreds of commodious harbors, a thousand leagues of coast, and a boundless ocean, been spread in the front of this land, and shall every purpose of utility to which they could apply be prohibited by the tenant of the woods? ”

“ There is a forest of masts and spars along the shore which is piled with merchandise, and dotted with sunlit figures squatting in the sand as if waiting for the goods to tranship themselves. With the sunlight slanting on our full sail, we glide into the shadow of high rocks, and enter, with the suddenness of a first discovery, into a deep winding river, the waters of which are dark and smooth, between lofty walls of granite. ”

“ HE open-door to an understanding of the sea coast life, its enthusiasms, its joys, its sorrows and its toil, is by way of the little sea-coast homes edging the ‘long-shore road in out-of-the-way coves and harbours, remote from towns, cities and the big sea-ports. These little houses are as a voice in the land; as soon as one heaves in sight by a turn of the road or a dip of the land we instantly feel their personality. ”

“ The Organ Mountains to the west and north, the ocean to the east, the city of Rio with its red-tiled houses at our feet, and the entire harbor like a map spread out, with innumerable bright valleys, make up a landscape that cannot be described by mere words. ”

“ The glassy water of the little harbour, with the branches of the trees hanging over the rocky beach, the boats at anchor, the tents supported by the crossed oars, and the smoke curling up the wooded valley, formed a picture of quiet retirement. ”

“ Verily, the land would wear a busy aspect at the spring and neap tide, and these island ships, these terræ infirmæ, which realize the fables of antiquity, affect our imagination. We have often thought that the fittest locality for a human dwelling was on the edge of the land, that there the constant lesson and impression of the sea might sink deep into the life and character of the landsman, and perhaps impart a marine tint to his imagination. ”

“ Take any corner where the streets pass clear through the town, you see, north, south, east, and west, or as near that as the lines run, the all-embracing mountains. They are from three to thirty miles distant, some even sixty miles, and yet they look as if only just down to the farther end of this telescopic tube of a street. They rise from two to ten thousand feet, and so are never diminutive, often very magnificent. ”

“ It is a jewel of a place; not a street but is full of picturesque effects, and all the look-outs, which you catch at every turn, let your eyes rest either upon one of the beautiful harbors on each side, or the distant horizon of the sea. ”

“ Passing wide and deep is this fair mere. From the hills and valleys round about sixty rivers fall therein, and making together one sweet water, pass swiftly by a single river to the sea. Sixty islands lie upon this water, the haunt and home of innumerable birds. ”

“ How graciously the water makes into the land, following the indentations, and flowing in little streams, going in and withdrawing gently and regretfully, and how the shore puts itself out in low points, wooing the embrace of the sea—a lovely union. ”

“ The deep and powerfully-flowing river Adour near by shows the influence of the neighbouring ocean and there is that sense of spaciousness, that freedom of body and spirit to be experienced only by the sea, on the higher mountains, or upon our vast Western plains. ”

“ The perpetual gliding of sails, and the rapid movement of steamers, brilliant with their evening lights, give to the prospect of the surrounding sea continual variety and interest. The Narrows, that watery pathway, through which the voyager to distant climes passes, his heart broken with the tender farewells of beloved ones, and by which he returns, in joy unutterable, every thought filled to overflowing with the imagery of home and native land, can never be viewed with indifference by those who have felt these emotions. ”

“ Thou harbor, thou forest of masts, thou countless fleet of stately galleys, which bind one quarter of the globe to another, inspiring terror, compelling obedience, and gaining boundless treasures by peaceful voyages and with shining blades. ”

“ Then ships and boats, a vast number of them, become visible in the harbor, and as the light grows stronger, the city and land lose something of their beauty, but the sky grows more softly fiery till the sun breaks through. The city lies low along the flat coast, and seems at first like a brownish white streak, with fine lines of masts, palm-trees, and minarets above it. ”

“ As I have looked from one of the northern windows of the street which commands our noble estuary,—the view through which is a picture on an illimitable canvas and a poem in innumerable cantos,—I have sometimes seen a pleasure-boat drifting along, her sail flapping, and she seeming as if she had neither will nor aim. ”

“ For, how can it be possible that we are just outside the harbour of a considerable city, with the shores of mainland and island as far as we can see, just as wild as Nature made them, wilder than anything most of us have ever seen before. ”

“ If he turn to the front, your capacious harbor, studded with green islands of ever varying light and shade, and enlivened by all the stirring evidences of commercial activity, offer him the mingled charms of busy life and nature's calm repose. ”

“ Once safely in port, we can cast a philosophical glance on the storms of passion and cultivate the paternal lands, if one has such, or at least look upon the tide of life placidly when about to be swallowed up in the ocean of eternity. ”