Sea

“ There, across the most fascinating and fickle sea in the world—a feminine sea, inconstant as lovely, all sunshine and tears in a moment, reflecting in its quick mirror in rapid succession the skies of grey and of blue, the weather of Europe and of Africa, a sea of romance and nausea—lies a world in Everything unlike our own, a world perfectly known yet never familiar and never otherwise than strange to the European and American. ”

“ All day long I walk the shore
Gazing out across the sea
Where the merry white-capped waves
Chase each other in their glee.
And I watch with eager eyes,
Pacing slowly to and fro,
For the ships I sent to sea
Many weary years ago. ”

“ The sun-breeze smiled, the night-wind laughed ;
The white-flocked sky, the foam-decked sea
Beckoned and welcomed sail and craft,
Beckoned and welcomed friend and me.
So side by side we sailed and sailed,
Fair wind behind, fair port before,
Till port forgot and wind that failed
Left both adrift twixt shore and shore.
A sea that steamed, a sky that scowled,
A sullen silence calm as death,
Then o'er the changing ocean howled
Full in our face the wild wind's breath. ”

“ The sea is of a light sap green; the level sun-glare slants across the wake of the steamer, and touches the crested waves; while a line of light, like a silvery mist, marks the edge of the sea, by running along the coast at the foot of the snow-capped hills. ”

“ Have you ever watched the sea when its surface is much ruffled, and noticed how, besides the big waves of the tide, there are numberless smaller ripples made by the wind blowing the surface of the water, or the oars of a boat dipping in it, or even rain- drops falling? ”

“ The leaping waves with their white-capped crest
The plunge and lunge on the ocean's breast
Like wild, white horses racing free,
With the swing of the rolling, surging sea!
The white sea cloud that drifts like a dream;
The sea-gulls that skim o'er the waves, and scream;
The dolphin's plunge and the petrel's nest,
That is borne to land on the tide-race crest:
And all that goes, from mid-ocean to lea,
To make up the rolling, the surging sea! ”

“ The little fleet will soon appear yonder betwixt the ocean and God’s sky with its white or brown sails. To-day the sky is unclouded, the sea calm; the flood tide floats the fishers gently to the shore. But the Ocean is a capricious old fellow, who takes all shapes and sings in many voices. ”

“ The sea outstretches grey and grim.
Away, away, away!
Once more at sea,
The old, old sea I used to sail,
The battling tide, the blowing gale,
The waves with ceaseless under-wail
The life that used to be. ”

“ Above the sea, the air is clearer or slightly clouded; above the land, it is thick, dark, and swollen. To the feelings, this stillness is pleasant. The sea breeze, the driving brine, that has made a salt-pan of the face, the short, restless sea, the dampness—all have grown wearisome, and welcome is the calm. ”

“ Heav’n, air, and sea, tho’ all their stores combine,
Shake not its base, nor break the law Divine.
At thy almighty voice, old ocean raves.
Wakes all his force, and gathers all his waves;
Nature lies mantled in a watry robe,
And shoreless ocean rolls around the globe;
O’er highest hills, the higher surges rise,
Mix with the clouds, and leave the vaulted skies. ”

“ It suggests no crystal waters, no picturesque shores, no sublimity. Tahoe for a sea in the clouds; a sea that has character, and asserts it in solemn calms, at times, at times in savage storms; a sea, whose royal seclusion is guarded by a cordon of sentinel peaks that lift their frosty fronts nine thousand feet above the level world; a sea whose every aspect is impressive, whose belongings are all beautiful, whose lonely majesty types the Deity! ”

“ There’s a sea-way somewhere where all day long
Is the hushed susurrus of the sea,
The mewing of the skuas, and the sailor’s song,
And the wind’s cry calling me.
There’s a haven somewhere where the quiet of the bay
Is troubled with the shifting tide,
Where the gulls are flying, crying in the bright white spray,
And the tan-sailed schooners ride. ”

“ What is there more sublime than the trackless, desert, all-surrounding, unfathomable sea? What is there more peacefully sublime than the calm, gently-heaving, silent sea? What is there more terribly sublime than the angry, dashing, foaming sea? ”

“ By all things near and far;
The ocean looketh up to heaven,
And mirrors every star.
Its waves are kneeling on the strand,
As kneels the human knee,
Their white locks bowing to the sand,
The priesthood of the sea! ”

“ The sea is nothing to you but a broad shining fascination, towards which your lazy speculating eyes turn and return. You know nothing of spirits crossing, of the fatal hollows between waves, of the white curl of a squall spreading, like a plague-spot, on the breast of a fair ocean. ”

“ The Sea ... the very words have magic. It is like the sound of a horn in woods, like the sound of a bugle in the dusk, like the cry of wind leaping the long bastions of silence. To many of us there is no call like it, no other such clarion of gladness. ”

“ About us beats the sea—the sail-flecked, restless sea, humming its tune about our flying keel, unmindful of the voices of men. The land sinks to meadows, black pine forests, with here and there a blue and wistful mountain. ”

“ They are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest. You stand on the shore, and gaze on the restless waters. A wave is hastening on, struggling and panting, and making with all its might for the shore. ”

“ My life is like a stroll upon the beach, As near the ocean’s edge as I can go, My tardy steps its waves sometimes o’erreach, Sometimes I stay to let them overflow. My sole employment ’t is, and scrupulous care, To place my gains beyond the reach of tides, Each smoother pebble, and each shell more rare, Which ocean kindly to my hand confides. I have but few companions on the shore, They scorn the strand who sail upon the sea, Yet oft I think the ocean they’ve sailed o’er Is deeper known upon the strand to me. ”

“ In all that we are, have been, and shall be, the sea comes first—the sea, sighing up quiet beaches, thundering off headlands, the sea blue and smiling under our white cliffs, or lashing the long sands, the sea out beyond foreshore and green fields, or rolling in on wind-blown rocks and wastes. ”

“ The sea! the sea has in itself an inexpressibly rest-giving, healing, and regenerating power. If thou wilt commence within thyself, and without, a new life—cross the sea. Let the air and the life of the sea bathe thy soul for days and weeks. Everything becomes new and fresh upon the sea. ”

“ Paumanok Sea-beauty! stretch’d and basking! One side thy inland ocean laving, broad, with copious commerce, steamers, sails, And one the Atlantic’s wind caressing, fierce or gentle—mighty hulls dark-gliding in the distance. ”

“ TIDE-RIPS AND THE SEA DRIFT.
740. The glories of the sea, and the destiny of the nautilus.—We never tire of the sea; like the atmosphere, it is a laboratory; in which wonders by processes the most exquisite are continually going on. Its flora and its fauna, its weaves and its tides, its currents and its salts, all in themselves afford profitable subjects of study and charming themes for thought. ”

“ Holding a sea-shell close against our ears we listen in fancy to the solemn music of the ocean surging through its hollow cavity,—the ocean with its sweeping thunderous harmony,—though all the time we know it is but the sound of our own life-blood pouring through our veins and pulsing upon our senses. ”

“ But the white drift of worlds o'er chasms of sable, The star-dust that is whirled aloft and flies From the invisible chariot-wheels of God. THE SOUND OF THE SEA The sea awoke at midnight from its sleep, And round the pebbly beaches far and wide I heard the first wave of the rising tide Rush onward with uninterrupted sweep; A voice out of the silence of the deep, A sound mysteriously multiplied As of a cataract from the mountain's side, Or roar of winds upon a wooded steep. So comes to us at times, from the unknown And inaccessible solitudes of being, The rushing of the sea-tides of the soul ”

“ VOYAGE The mystique of the sea, where waves act as snares, hang boughs over wet blackness wherever winds die driven ashore. Melancholy vastness- its pleasure the dim lights swallowed in glutton happiness the further I search the sea. ”

“ Only on the bounding blue, the grand, great sea, is one rocked into a peaceful rest at noon of day, at dusk of night, feeling that one is drifting, drifting, not seeing, or knowing, or caring, about fool mortals striving for life. ”

“ All on board are familiar with the sea—have spent years upon it. Yet is there fear in their hearts and pallor on their cheeks, as their eyes turn to that belt of white frothy water between them and the land, trending north and south beyond the range of vision. ”

“ If it refuses any earthly spot, it is shrinking from its calling. Here this one stands for the sea as for the land, high-uplifted, looking out over the waters as a sign of the haven from all storms, the rest in God. And down beneath in its storehouse lie the bodies of men—you saw the grave of some of them on the other side—flung ashore from the gulfing sea. ”

“ I have seen them riding seaward on the waves Combing the white hair of the waves blown back When the wind blows the water white and black. We have lingered in the chambers of the sea By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown Till human voices wake us, and we drown. ”

“ I never was on the dull tame shore,
But I loved the great Sea more and more :
And backward flew to her billowy birmant,
Like a bird that seeketh its mother's nest,
And a mother she was and is to me,
For I was born on the open Sea. ”

“ If young people go to breathe the invigorating sea-breezes, let them, in justice to nature, see the great ocean as it really is, broad, bold, and deep, without the fringe of fashion on its shores. Let them listen to the roaring waves, and run before the sparkling foam, and watch the hollow breakers rise and curl, and dash themselves to rest. ”

“ But everywhere the ocean is bordered by the land; and its waters, in the circle of their tides, wash over a hundred shores, and fill a thousand bays and creeks and little rocky pools. Even as the deep sea sends its shallower waters over the sands, and then withdraws them into its eternal and unfathomable fulness, so the waters of God flow into every soul. ”

“ Thou primordial Sea, the awfulness of whose antiquity hath stricken all mythology dumb;—thou most wrinkled diving Sea, the millions of whose years outnumber even the multitude of thy hoary motions;—thou omniform and most mysterious Sea, mother of the monsters and the gods,—whence shine eternal youth? ”

“ The theme of the sea is heroic—epic. Since the first stirrings of the imagination of man the sea has enthralled him; and since the dawn of literature he has chronicled his wanderings upon its vast bosom. ”

“ I have just come back from the seaside, and as I looked at the sea I thought more than once of 'the ocean of Thy love.' The waves of the sea beat against a stubborn rock and seem to make no impression. But in a few years' time the rock begins to yield. The constant wash of the waves wears it away. So with our hard, stubborn wills. The ocean of His love will reduce them slowly but surely, and likewise the stubborn wills of men around us, thank God! ”

“ IX THE MEANING OF THE SEA I It is good to live ever in the sight of the sea. I have been tramping two months along seashores, and living a daily life in the presence of the Infinite. From Novorossisk to Batoum, eight hundred and fifty versts, I have explored all that coast of the Black Sea that lies at the feet of the Caucasus—to left of me the snow-peaked mountains shoulder to shoulder under heaven, to right the resplendent, magnificent sea. ”

“ And then, what is this sea, the subject of so many apostrophes in verse and prose addressed to its greatness and its mystery by men who had never penetrated either the one or the other? The sea is uncertain, arbitrary, featureless, and violent. Except when helped by the varied majesty of the sky, there is something inane in its serenity and something stupid in its wrath, which is endless, boundless, persistent, and futile—a grey, hoary thing raging like an old ogre uncertain of its prey. ”

“ The sea gives, better than any other thing, a feeling of the mystery of never-ending distances. It strikes not merely on living beings, through their imagination, their blood, their nerves, but seems almost to project itself into materials. ”

“ If you listen to its ever-changing music you can hear almost anything you please, for the sea goes everywhere. Ask, and the sea shall sing to you of the frozen north where half the year is darkness and the impassable waste of waters sweeps across the pole. ”

“ The sea, we sometimes say, has its moods, but rather should they be called enthusiasms. It is really not the sea at all to which we refer, but to something which in the vague world of infinitude is in itself a sea whipping the surface of an unfathomable wonder. ”

“ I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face and a grey dawn breaking. ”

“ Storm and wreck and calm; intercourse with savages who look with wonder on the white sails that have come up from the under-world; the wash of waters upon coral-reefs; the shadow of green palms upon lonely isles; strange sea-weeds floating on the deep green wave, and flying-fish hunted by voracious foes; long days and nights spent under glowing skies, without a glimpse of land; the breathless [Pg 341] eagerness with which some new shore is sighted—with such incidents as these we English are necessarily familiar, possessing as we do a vast and various literature of the sea. ”