32 COUNTRY ESSAYS. 



are once weighed, we must darkling make our voyage. The 

 sea is thus the latest, as it was our earliest, instructor. Its vast- 

 ness, its brightness, its union of perpetual agitation with central 

 peace all these qualities are now but symbols' of the future 

 state, as they served in youth for the work of fancy, or of en- 

 couragement and solace in manhood. From this world's sea 

 old age thus insensibly passes to the "sea of glass like unto 

 crystal" before the throne of God. Finally, in order that it 

 may strengthen the man about to suffer this " sea change " in a 

 higher sense than Shakespeare ever dreamt, the notion of trust- 

 fully waiting is also inherent in the sea. Lowell seldom wrote 

 grander words than when he thus dwells on this aspect of the 

 sea and the home beyond : * 



" The drooping sea-weed hears, in night abyssed, 



Far and more far the wave's receding shocks, 

 Nor doubts, for all the darkness and the mist, 

 That the pale shepherdess will keep her tryst, 



And shoreward lead again her foam-fleeced flocks. 

 And, though Thy healing waters far withdraw, 



I, too, can wait and feed on hope of Thee, 

 And of the dear recurrence of Thy law; 

 Sure that the parting grace that morning saw 



Abides its time to come in search of me. " 



* Poems, p. 381. 



