CHAPTER IX

THE SEA

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:
I love not Man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.

Roll on, thou deep and dark-blue Ocean-roll!

BYRON.

al.

oll!

BYRON

PUBLIC LIBRARY

ASTOR, LENOX TILDEN FOUNDATION

CHAPTER IX

THE SEA

WHEN the glorious summer weather comes, when we feel that by a year's honest work we have fairly won the prize of a good holiday, how we turn instinctively to the Sea. We pine for the delicious smell of the sea air, the murmur of the waves, the rushing sound of the pebbles on the sloping shore, the cries of the sea-birds; and long to

Linger, where the pebble-paven shore,
Under the quick, faint kisses of the Sea,
Trembles and sparkles as with ecstasy.1

How beautiful the sea-coast is! At the foot of a cliff, perhaps of pure white chalk, or rich red sandstone, or stern grey granite, lies the shore of gravel or sand, with a few