not the least of the many charms exercised by the deep and wide sea upon its bond-servants are the varied voices by which it makes known its ever-changing moods. they are not for all ears to hear. many a sailor spends the greater part of a long life in closest intercourse with the ocean, yet to its myriad beauties he is blind; no realised sense of his intimacy with the immensity of the universe ever makes the hair of his flesh stand up, and to the majestic music of the unresting deep his ears of appreciation are closely sealed. not that unto any one of the sons of men is it ever given to be conversant with all the countless phases of delight belonging to the sea. for some cannot endure the call of deep answering unto deep, the terrible thundering of the untrammelled ocean in harmony with the uttermost diapason of the storm-wind. all their finer perceptions are benumbed by fear. and other some, who are yet unable to rejoice in the sombre glory of the tempest-tones, are intolerant of the lightsome glee born of zephyrs and sunlight when the sweet murmur of the radiant breaths is like the contented cooing of care-free infancy, and every dancing wavelet wears a many-dimpled smile. for them there must be a breeze of strength with[293] a strident, swaggering sea through which the well-found ship ploughs her steady way at utmost speed with every rounded sail distent like a cherub’s cheek, and every rope and stay humming a merry tune. least of all in number are those who can enjoy a perfect calm. indeed, in these bustling, strenuous days of ours opportunities of so doing are daily becoming fewer. the panting steamship tears up the silken veil of the slumbering sea like some envious monster in a garden of sleep making havoc of its beauty. she makes her own wind by her swift thrust through the restful atmosphere, although there be in reality none astir even sufficient to ruffle the shining surface before her.
still, the fact must not be overlooked that many sea-farers do verily enjoy to the full all sea-sights and sea-sounds, but of their pleasures they cannot speak. deep silent content is theirs, a perfect complacency of delight that length of acquaintanceship only makes richer and more satisfying, until, as the very structure of the stradivarius is saturated with music, so the mariner’s whole being absorbs, and becomes imbued with, the magic of wind and wave. this incommunicable joy a monarch might well envy its possessor, for it is independent of environment, so that although the seafarer may grow old and feeble, be far away from his well-beloved sea, even blind and deaf, yet within his soul will still vibrate those resounding harmonies, and with inward eyes he can feast a farther-reaching vision than ever over those glorious fenceless fields.
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the voices of the sea are many, but their speech is one. naturally, perhaps, the thought turns first to the tremendous chorus uplifted in the hurricane, that swells and swells until even the tropical thunder’s deafening cannonade is unheard, drowned deep beneath the exultant flood of song poured forth by the rejoicing sea. many epithets have been chosen to characterise the storm-song of the ocean. none of them can ever hope to satisfy completely, for all must bear some definite reflex of the minds of their utterers, according as they have been impressed by their experiences or imaginings. but to my mind most of the terms used are out of place and misleading. they generally endeavour to describe the tempestuous sea as a ravenous monster, a howling destroyer of unthinking ferocity, and the like. alas, it is very natural so to do. for when this feeble frame must needs confront the resounding main in the plenitude of its power, our mortal part must perforce feel and acknowledge its insignificance, must dwindle and shake with fear, although that part of us which is akin to the infinite may vainly desire to rejoice with all seas and floods that praise him and magnify him for ever. not in the presence of ocean shouting his hymn of praise may we satisfy our desire to join in the triumphant lay, although we know how full of benefits to our race are the forces made vocal in that majestic lobgesang. as the all-conquering flood of sound, with a volume as if god were smiting the sapphire globe of the universe, rolls on, we may hear the cry, “life and[295] strength and joy do i bring. before my resistless march darkness, disease, and death must flee. when beneath my reverberating chariot-wheels man is overwhelmed, not mine the blame. i do but fulfil mine appointed way, scattering health, refreshment, and well-being over every living thing.”
but when as yet the sky is serene above and the surface of the slumbering depths is just ruffled by a gentle air, there may often be heard another voice, as if some gigantic orchestra in another star was preparing for the signal to burst forth into such music as belongs not to our little planet. fitful wailing notes in many keys, long sustained and all minor, encompass the voyager without and within. now high, now low, but ever tending to deepen and become more massive in tone, this unearthly symphony is full of warning. it bids the watchful seaman make ready against the advent of the fast approaching storm, that, still some hundreds of leagues distant, is sending its pursuivants before its face. nor are these spirit-stirring chords due to the harp-like obstruction offered by the web of rigging spread about the masts of a ship to the rising wind. it may be heard even more definitely in an open boat far from any ship or shore, although there, perhaps because of the great loneliness of the situation, it always seems to take a tone of deeper melancholy, as if in sympathy with the helplessness of the human creatures thus isolated from their fellows. it belongs, almost exclusively, to the extra-tropical regions where storms are many. and within a certain compass,[296] its intimates find little variation of its scale. always beginning in the treble clef and by regular melodic waves gradually descending until with the incidence of the storm it blends into the grand triumphal march spoken of before. but when it is heard within the tropics let the mariner beware. none can ever mistake its weird lament, sharpening every little while into a shrill scream as if impatient that its warning should be heeded without delay. it searches the very marrow of the bones, and beasts as well as men look up and are much afraid. for it is the precursor of the hurricane, before which the bravest seaman blanches, when sea and sky seem to meet and mingle, the waters that are above the firmament with the waters that are under the firmament, as in the days before god said “let there be light.”
far different again is the cheerful voice of the trade wind over the laughing happy sea of those pleasant latitudes. no note of sadness or melancholy is to be detected there. brisk and bright, confident and gay, it bids the sailor be glad in his life. bids him mark anew how beautiful is the bright blue sea, how snowy are the billowy clouds piled peacefully around the horizon, while between them and the glittering edge of the vast circle shows a tender band of greyish green of a lucent clearness that lets the rising stars peep through as soon as they are above the horizon. overhead through all the infinite fleckless dome eddy the friendly tones. yet so diffused are they, so vast in their area that if one listen for them he cannot hear aright—they[297] must be felt rather than heard. well may their song be of content and good cheer. for they course about their ordained orbits as the healthful life tides through the human body, keeping sweet all adjacent shores and preventing by their beneficent agitation a baleful stagnation of the sea. by day the golden sun soars on his splendid road from horizon to zenith until he casts no shadow, and all the air quivers with living light, then in stately grandeur sinks through the pure serenity of that perfect scene, the guardian cumuli clustering round his goal melting apart so that, visible to the last of his blazing verge, he may go as he came, unshadowed by haze or cloud. then, as the radiant train of lovely rays fade reluctantly from the blue concave above, all the untellable splendours of the night come forth in their changeless order, their scintillating lustre undimmed by the filmiest veil of haze. one incandescent constellation after another is revealed until, as the last faint sheen of the departing day disappears from the western horizon, the double girdle of the galaxy is flung across the darkling dome in all its wondrous beauty. and unceasingly through all the succeeding beauties of the day and night that flood of happy harmony rolls on.
how shall i speak of the voice of the calm? how describe that sound which mortal ear cannot hear? the pen of the inspired writers alone might successfully undertake such a task, so closely in touch as they were with the master mind. “when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons[298] of god shouted for joy.” something akin to this sublime daring of language is needed to convey a just idea of what floods the soul when alone upon the face of the deep in a perfect calm. the scale of that heavenly harmony is out of our range. we can only by some subtle alchemy of the brain distil from that celestial silence the voices of angels and archangels and all the glorious company of heaven. between us and them is but a step, but it is the threshold of the timeless dimension. again and again i have seen men, racked through and through with a very agony of delight, dash aside the thralls that held them, sometimes with passionate tears, more often with raging words that grated harshly upon the velvet stillness. they felt the burden of the flesh grievous, since it shut them out from what they dimly felt must be bliss unutterable, not to be contained in any earthen vessel. on land a thousand things, even in a desert, distract the attention, loose the mind’s tension even when utterly alone. but at sea, the centre of one vast glassy circle, shut in on every hand by a perfect demi-globe as flawless as the mirror whereon you float, with even the softest undulation imperceptible, and no more motion of the atmosphere than there is in a perfect vacuum, there is absolutely nothing to come between the soul of man and the infinite silences of creation. there and there only is it possible to realise what underlies that mighty line, “there was silence in heaven for the space of half-an-hour.” few indeed are the[299] men, however rough and unthinking, that are not quieted and impressed by the marvel of a perfect calm. but the tension is too great to be borne long with patience. men feel that this majestic environment is too redolent of the coming paradise to be supportable by flesh and blood. they long with intense desire for a breeze, for motion, for a change of any sort. so much so that long-continued calm is dreaded by seamen more than any other phase of sea-experience. and yet it is for a time lovely beyond description, soothing the jarring nerves and solemnising every faculty as if one were to be shut in before the shekinah in the holy of holies. it is like the peace of god.
thus far i have feebly attempted to deal with some of the sea-voices untinctured by any contact with the land. but although the interposition of rock and beach, cliff and sand-bank introduces fresh changes with every variation of weather, new combinations of sound that do not belong solely to the sea, any description of the sea-music that should take no account of them would be manifestly one-sided and incomplete. and yet the mutabilities are so many, the gamut is so extended that it is impossible to do more than just take a passing note of a few characteristic impressions. for every lonely reef, every steep-to shore has an infinite variety of responses that it gives back to the besieging waves. some of them are terrible beyond the power of words to convey. when the sailor in a crippled craft, his reckoning unreliable, and his vigour[300] almost gone by a long-sustained struggle with the storm, hears to leeward the crashing impact of mountainous waves against the towering buttresses of granite protecting a sea-beset land, it is to him a veritable knell of doom. or when through the close-drawn curtains of fog comes the hissing tumult of breaking seas over an invisible bank, interpolated with the hoarse bellowing of the advancing flood checked in its free onward sweep, bold and high indeed must be the courage that does not fail. the lonely lighthouse-keeper on the bishop rock during the utmost stress of an atlantic gale notes with quickening pulse the change of tone as the oncoming sea, rolling in from freedom, first feels beneath it the outlying skirts of the solitary mountain. nearer and deeper and fiercer it roars until, with a shock that makes the deep-rooted foundations of the rocks tremble, and the marvellous fabric of dovetailed stone sway like a giant tree, it breaks, hurling its crest high through the flying spindrift over the very finial of the faithful tower.
but on the other hand, on some golden afternoon among the sunny islands of summer seas, hear the soft soothing murmur of the gliding swell upon the slumbering shore. it fills the mind with rest. sweeter than lowest lullaby, it comforts and composes, and even in dreams it laps the sleeper in elysium. the charm of that music is chief among all the influences that bind the memory to those enchanted isles. it returns again and again under[301] sterner skies, filling the heart with almost passionate longing to hear it, to feel it in all its mystery once again. still when all has been said, every dweller on the sea-shore knows the voice of his own coast best. for him it has its special charm, whether it shriek around ice-laden rocks, roar against iron-bound cliffs, thunder over jagged reefs, or babble among fairy islets. and yet all these many voices are but one.
