The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1885-07-24
The Ocean.
Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Oliver Wendell Holmes.
The ocean says to the dweller on its
shores
You are neither welcome nor IN
welcome. | do not trouble myself
with the living tribes that come down
to my waters. have my W people,
an older ace than yours. that grow to
mightier dimensions than your masto-
dons and elephants; more mero
than all the warns that ill the air
or move yer the thin crust OF the
earth. Who are you that build your
gay palaces on my margina l see
your white faces rs | saw the dark
faces OF the tribes that came before
YOU, as l shall look upon the unknown
family of mankind that will come af-
ter you. And what is your whole hui
nan family but a parenthesis in a sin
gle page OF my history: The raindrops
stereotyped themselves on my beaches
before a living creature left its foot
prints there. This horseshoe crab l
fling at your feet is of older lineage
than your ADAM unless, perhaps,
you count your Adam as M of his
descendants. What feeling have | for
you? Not scorn,-not hatred,-not
love.-notloathing.-
blank Indifference to YOU and your
affairs, that is my feeling, say rather
absence of feeling, as regards YOU. Oh
yes. | will lap your feet, l will cool
you in the hot summer days, | will
bear you up in my strong arms. ! will
rock you on my rolling undulations,
like a babe in his cradle. Am ] net
gentle? Am l not kind? Am | not
harmless:o But hark! The wind is
r sing, and the wind and I are rough
playmatcs! What do you say to my
voice nowe DO you see my foaming
lips? Do you feel the rocks tremble
as my great pillows crash against
them? Is not my anger terrible as 1
dash your argosy- your thun-
der bearing frigate, into frag-
ments, as You would crack an egg
shell? No, not anger; deaf, blind, I'm
needing inditterence,-that is all. Out
OF me all things arose; sooner or later
into me all things subside. All changes.
around me; | change not. look not
at you vain man Land at yourfrail tran
STORY concerns, saw in momentary
glimpses. | look on the white face of
my dead mistress. whom | follow as.
the bridegroom follows the bier of
her who has changed her nuptial raj
ment for the shroud.
''Ye whose thoughts are of eternity
come dwell at my side. Continents
and isles grow old, and waste and dis
appear. The hardest rock crumbles:
vegetable and animal Kingdoms come
into being wax great, decline and per-
lsh. to give wa to others. wen as hui
nan dvnasties and nations and races
come and go. Look or me-, Thine
writes no wrinkle on my forehead.
Listen TO me! Ali tongues are spoken
on my shores. but l have only one Ian
guage: the winds taught me their VOW
els: the crags and the sands schooled
me in my rough or smooth c~onsonants.
Few words are mine, but | have whis-
pered them and sung them and shout
ed them to men of all tribes from the
time when the first wild w~anderer
strayed into my awful presence. Have
you a grief that gnaws nj Your heart
strings? Come with it to my shore.
as Of old the priest of far-darting Apoi-
10 carried his rage and anguish to the
margin of the logd-roaring sea. There,
If anywhere, you will forget Your pri-
vate and short-lived woe. for my voice
speaks to the infinite and the eternal
IN our consciousness E