A SALT BREEZE 157 



sickle, the crackle of stubble, the rustle of sheaves, 

 and the screening of grain. Then again there is 

 mimic thunder as the waves burst, followed by a 

 sound like the downpouring of torrents of rain. 

 How it shovels the sand and sifts and washes it 

 forever ! Every particle of silt goes seaward ; it is 

 the earth-pollen with which the sunken floors of 

 the sea are deeply covered. What material for 

 future continents, new worlds and new peoples, is 

 hoarded within its sunless depths! How Darwin 

 longed to read the sealed book of the earth's his- 

 tory that lies buried beneath the sea! He thought 

 it probable that the first continents were there; 

 that the areas of elevation and of subsidence had 

 changed places in the remote past. 



Turning over the collections of sea- poetry in the 

 libraries, it is rare enough to find a line or a stanza 

 with the real savor of the shore in it. 'T is mostly 

 fresh-water poetry, very pretty, often spirited and 

 frothy, but seldom gritty, saline, and elemental. 

 That bearded, bristling, savage quality of the sea, 

 to which I have referred, you shall hardly find 

 hinted at, except, perhaps, in Whitman, who is 

 usually ignored in these anthologies. Tennyson's 

 touches, as here and there in "Sea- Dreams," always 

 satisfy, and one chafes that Shakespeare should have 

 left so little on the subject. 



The poets make a dead set at the vastness, 

 power, and terror of the sea, and take their fill of 

 these aspects of it. 'Tis an easy theme, and soon 

 wearies. We crave the verse that shall give us the 



