Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1885-05-22
The Ocean,

The ocean says to the dwellcr on its
ihoresi "You are neither welcome norun-
welcome do not trouble myself with
the living tribes that come down to my
waters. have my own people, an older
race than yours, that grow to mightier
dimensions than your mastodons and
elephants; more numerous than all the
swarms that fill the air or move over the
thin crusts of the earth. Who are you
that build your gay palaces on my mar
ginf | see your white faces as | saw
the dark faces of the tribes chat came
before you; as shall look upon the uns
known family Of mankind that will come
after you. And what is your whole hu-
man family but a parenthesis in a single
page of my historyl The raindrops ster-
eotyped themselves on my beaches be-
fore a living creature left his foot
prints there. This horseshoe crab | fling
at your feet is of older lineage
than your Adam-unless perhaps, you
count your Adam one of his descend
ants. What feeling have | for you9 Not
scorn-not hatred, not love-no lOath-
ing, no indiiference-blank indifference
to you and your affairs; that is my
feeling, say rather absence of feeling, as
regards you. Oh, yes; l 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 undu-
lations like babe in his cradle Am 1
not gentlel Am not kind2 Am l not
harmlessl But bark! The wind is ris-
ing and the wind and l are rough play
mates. What do you say to my voice
now1 Do you see my foaming lips9 Do
you feel the rocks tremble as my great
pillows crash against them7 Is not my
anger terrible as dash your agony, your
thunder bearing frigate, into fragments,
as you would crack an eggshell3 No,
not anger; deaf, blind, unheeding indif-
ference-that is all. Out of me all
things arose; sooner or later, into me all
things subside. All changes around me !;
lchange not. l look not at you, vain
man, and your frail transitory concerns,
save in momentary glimpses; l look on
the white face of my dead mistress,
whom follow as the bridegroom follows
the bier of her who has changed her
nuptial rament for the shroud.
Eye whose thoughts are of eternity
come dwell at my side. Continents and
isles grow old and waste and disappear.
The hardest rock crumbles; vegetable
and animal Kingdoms come into being,
wax great, decline and perish, to give
way to Others, even as human dynasties
and nations and races come and go.
Look on me! Time writes no wrinkle
ON my forehead. Listen to me. All
tongues are spoken on my shores, but I
have only one language; the winds
taught me their vowels, the crags and
the sands schooled me in my rough or
smooth consonants. Few words are
mine, but l have whispered them and
sung them and shouted them to men of
tribes from the time when the first wild
wanderer strayed into my awful pres.
ence. Have you grief that gnaws at
your heart strings2 Come with it to my
shore, as of old the priests of far darling
Apollo carried his rage and anguish to
the margin of the loud,roaring sea.
There, if anywhere, you will forget your
private and short-livcd woe. for my voice
speaks to the infinite and the eternal in
your consciousness. - Oii0er Wendell
! TIol,1es an Aflupfjc