158 SIGNS AND SEASONS 



taste of the salt spray upon our lips. Bryant's 

 hymn to the sea is noble and stately, but it is 

 only his forest hymn shifted to the shore. It 

 touches the same chords. It has no marine quality 

 or atmosphere. The bitterness and the sweetness 

 of the sea, as of a celestial dragon devouring and 

 purifying, are not in it. The poet wings his lofty 

 flight above sea and shore alike. When Emerson 

 sings of the sea, there is more savor, more tonic 

 air, a closer and stronger hold upon the subject; 

 but even he takes refuge in the vastness of his 

 theme, and speaks through the imperial voice of the 

 sea: — 



" I heard, or seemed to hear, the chiding Sea 

 Say, Pilgrim, why so late and slow to come ? 

 Am I not always here, thy summer home ? 

 Is not my voice thy music, morn and eve, 

 My breath thy healthful climate in the heats. 

 My touch thy antidote, my bay thy bath ? 

 Was ever building like my terraces ? 

 Was ever couch magnificent as mine ? " 



There are strong lines in Rossetti's " Sea Limits," 

 but, like the others, it is a far-off idealization of 

 the subject, and does not bring one nearer the sea. 



There are occasionally good descriptive lines in 

 Miller, as 



" I crossed the hilly sea." 

 And again, — 



"The ships, black-bellied, climb the sea." 



There is something fresh and inviting in this 

 comparison : — 



"As pure as sea-washed sands." 



