THE SEA-SHOKE. 185 



son ; and a few days later, the maritime peavine covers 

 roods of sand with its dense green leaves, interspersed 

 with tufts of purple flowers, that seem to peep out 

 timidly from under the foliage. Of more humble ap- 

 pearance, we observe the sea-sandwort, and the scarlet 

 pimpernel, or poor man's weather-glass, that expands in 

 the bro^d sunshine, but closes when the sky is overcast 

 with clouds, or the wind blows freshly from the sea. 

 Many tall grasses are nodding their brown and purple 

 plumes on the edge of the shore ; and as if to rival the 

 beauty of the meadows, the marsh rosemary gleams 

 among the herbage, like some fair blossoms that have 

 wandered from a brighter clime. The purple gerardia 

 does not refuse to grow by the seaside, and often blends 

 its delicate cups with the green and crimson samphire. 

 The shores abound with many other plants conspicu- 

 ous only for their peculiarities. Such are the prickly 

 salt-wort, and the goose-foot and the sea-lovage that 

 are frequent by the seaside, and are familiarly asso- 

 ciated in our minds with its sands and its pebbles. 



There is a mixture of beauty, grandeur, and desola- 

 tion in the objects about the sea-shore, that renders it 

 peculiarly interesting to every man of lively fancy. 

 Hence it has ever been the theme of the poet, from him 

 who portrays Chryses, the priest and bereaved parent 

 wandering silent and sorrowful by the sounding main, 

 regarding the sea-shore as a- proper scene for a discon- 

 solate father's grief, to the modern lyrist who apostro- 

 phizes the open sea. And hence the sea and its ac- 

 companiments have ever been the haunt of beings of 

 the imagination. From every rock has been heard the 

 sweet voice of the Siren ; and Nereids, in the semblance 

 of beautiful nymphs, reside in palaces of amber, far 

 down in the fathomless deep. Among the cliffs and 



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