The Fall Begins 165 



grace, the poet was right in his love of the ocean. 

 Not for every day is the great sea movement, to 

 one who is in unity with grand uplift of the moun 

 tains and gentle caresses of the moors and glens. 

 But there comes a moment when all things else 

 seem dull and lifeless compared with the impact of 

 the mighty, far-running ocean waves rushing upon 

 the beach, or dashing against the cliff. Oh to 

 feel the salt breath of thousands of miles of water 

 breaking at our feet, on the shore, or splashing 

 spray upon us as we sit upon the coast cliffs ! 

 Oh to dream of all that has been in man s curious 

 and contradictory history, resting for a little space 

 upon a rock, and watching the waves, and behold 

 ing the gulls and kittiwakes in their fine, free sail 

 ing and dipping. A gull ? nay, rather 



&quot; A spirit on Eternity s wide sea, 



Calling : Come thou where all we glad souls be ! &quot; 



Yet when we behold a flight of cranes from 

 some sequestered pond, or crows, black against 

 the keen blue sky, cawing as they go in their 

 emphatic language, or a pair of bluejays in their 

 brilliant garb, or when we startle a wren from the 

 hedgerow or a sparrow from the ground, there 

 is something of significance, though no way so 

 suggestive as the birds of the waves, of that illim- 

 itation of freedom that we know shall be ours 



