342 THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE CHAP. 



Yet more ; the billows and the depths have more ; 



High hearts and brave are gathered to thy breast ; 

 They hear not now the booming waters roar, 



The battle thunders will not break their rest. 



Keep thy red gold and gems, thou stormy grave ; 



Give back the true and brave. 1 



The most vivid description of a storm, at 

 sea is, I think, the following passage from 

 Raskin's Modern Painters : 



"Few people, comparatively, have ever 

 seen the effect on the sea of a powerful gale 

 continued without intermission for three or 

 four days and nights ; and to those who have 

 not, I believe it must be unimaginable, not 

 from the mere force or size of the surge, but 

 from the complete annihilation of the limit 

 between sea and air. The water from its pro- 

 longed agitation is beaten, not into mere 

 creaming foam, but into masses of accumu- 

 lated yeast, which hangs in ropes and wreaths 

 from wave to wave, and, where one curls over 

 to break, form a festoon like a drapery from 

 its edge ; these are taken up by the wind, not 

 in dissipating dust, but bodily, in writhing, 

 hanging, coiling masses, which make the air 



i Hemans. 



