78 STUDIES OF NATURE 



consists in .listening with the ear of fancy to 

 those sweet passages in ' The Tempest ' which 

 touch upon the subject of the * salt deep.' Was 

 anyone ever weary of hearing ' Full fathom 

 five,' or ' Come unto these yellow sands ' ? 

 Surely these are among those 



Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not. 



While these enchanted measures are running 

 through my mind I discover that I have drifted 

 too near the shore. A friend shouts to me 

 from the road under the cliffs, and I hear the 

 keel grating on the stones. My dream is over 

 and I pull out to sea again ; but not without 

 noticing how curiously, as I go into deeper 

 water, the sea-bottom appears to sink or recede 

 from under me, so that I feel as if I were 

 falling into an ever-deepening gulf from which 

 all objects that measure distance gradually 

 disappear. Under certain aspects the bottom 

 of the sea suggests to the mind only images 



