“It was my fortune this summer to witness several storms of such intensity that I became impressed with the routine of their procedure. The sea—grown dark, heavy, and oily—is first flicked and spotted, and then strangely lighted, all over, with the dash of rain and hail; the sun is made lurid, then shrouded, and then hidden by a metallic sky; the clouds grow gloomy and sullen until they are shattered by peals of thunder and riven by livid lightnings. Then the wind rushes, howls, and roars; tearing and hurtling the clouds and tumbling and lashing the waves until they leap and plunge, reel and writhe, flinging up hissing foam and whirling spray ‘shrewd with salt.’ It is undoubtedly glorious—but I like it best when it is over, leaving the torn waves heavy with foam as a reminder, by contrast, of the quieter beauties of a calmer sea.
“Even the sky, the most beautiful thing that we know, seems to multiply its beauty by the sea. One day I saw night gradually lapsing into dawn. The sea glimmered as though the stars had come down, and then flashed until, in the language of Swinburne, it blossomed rosily and flowered in the sun, floating all fiery upon the burning water. I saw many long mornings of sapphire sky and lapis-lazuli sea, and many noons when the waves glittered until their spray became diamonds. Through long afternoons the sea reflected sky and clouds in every shade of silver, blue, and green. The amber fire of the setting sun not only made the heavens splendid, but poured both direct and reflected rays upon the sea until nothing but the idea of a stupendous opal could suggest its coloring. Later, all would fade until land was lost, the sea grew deep and dark, and the only light was the foam and the reflections of the stars. With the moon, all grew new again. Rising low and large, it threw a broad, undulating pathway as golden as that of the sun was silver. Where it reached the shore its glitter extended along the surf, gleaming over the sands, and twinkling wherever spray or dew had fallen. Later yet, as the moon quietly sank, the general illumination grew dim, until obscurity covered land and sea alike, and the sea seemed to merge into infinite space.
“Then, as at no other time, one hears the sound of the sea. I spent many hours listening, endeavoring to analyze it, and to interpret its effect. Its continuity and variety are perhaps its most striking characteristics. It is so ceaseless that it suggests the everlasting. Within this perpetuity it rises and sinks, leaps and falls, gathers and dissolves; it sweeps and rolls, sways and trembles; it seems to approach and withdraw, to flow and overflow; it sounds and resounds, repeats and changes. And well it may do all this and more, considering that its source is a countless number and variety of waves, surging, breaking, and seething among themselves; rushing, plashing, lapping on the shore, chafing sand, rattling pebbles, grating shells, grinding rocks:—all of the resulting sound being constantly varied as well as augmented by breeze, wind, and storm; by the configuration and reverberating qualities of the shore; and by the varying acoustic properties of the atmosphere.
“Analysis being thus nearly baffled, I turned to analogy, and found the sound like the rumble of thunder, the crash of falling rocks, the rush of cataracts; like the quiver of green branches and the rustle of dry leaves; like the bellow and roar of animals; the clash of arms and armor. It is very much like music in its elements of monotone, chord, cadence, melody, and harmony; its relations of continuity, rhythm, repetition, and variation; in its sounds as of cymbal, tympani, bell, trumpet, viol, harp, or organ; its suggestions of symphony or chorale. It is, perhaps, most of all like the human voice, half audible in whisper or murmur; inarticulate in sigh or sob; muffled in mutter or moan; hushed in lullaby or croon; blended in a unison of song or supplication; confused in the hum and rumor, the call and shout, the clamor or tumult of great crowds.
“From such prosing of my own I turned to the record and interpretation of sea music by the poets. From them I collected an alphabetical list of characterizations, and by the time that I had accumulated about one hundred I fell so into their spirit that I, myself, produced the following—as yet unnamed—poetic fragment:
Always attunéd, its anthem billowing, breaking is blown;
Ceaseless, its cadenced complaining deepens to dirge or to drone;
Ever its eloquent echo falling, again flies free,
Till it gathers and grows in grandeur like heaven’s high harmony.
“I stopped there, because ‘kissing’ was the next striking epithet and that seemed rather too fanciful, although the Swinburnian spirit aroused by the composition yearned, so to speak, to go on to ‘mightily murmured the main’ and ‘sonorously sounded the sibilant sea.’