rgin of a tranquil lake, and floated through many
a long, long summer day on its clear waters.

"I have learned the 'various language' of Nature, of which poetry has
spoken,--at least, I have learned some words and phrases of it. I will
translate some of these as I best may into common speech.

"The OCEAN says to the dweller on its shores:--

"You are neither welcome nor unwelcome. I do not trouble myself with the
living tribes that come down to my waters. I have my own people, of
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 crust of the earth. Who are you that build
your palaces on my margin? I see your white faces as I saw the dark
faces of the tribes that came before you, as I shall look upon the
unknown family of mankind that will come after you. And what is your
whole human family but a parenthesis in a single page of my history? The
raindrops stereotyped themselves on my beaches before a living creature
left his footprints there. This horseshoe-crab I fling at your feet is
of older lineage than your Adam,--perhaps, indeed, you count your Adam
as one of his descendants. What feeling have I for you? Not scorn,
not hatred,--not love,--not loathing. No!---indifference,--blank
indifference to you and your affairs that is my feeling, say rather
absence of feeling, as regards you.---Oh yes, I will lap your feet, I
will cool you in the hot summer days, I will bear you up in my strong
arms, I will rock you on my rolling undulations, like a babe in his
cradle. Am I not gentle? Am I not kind? Am I not harmless? But hark! The
wind is rising, and the wind and I are rough playmates! What do you
say to my voice now? Do you see my foaming lips? Do you feel the rocks
tremble as my huge billows crash against them? Is not my anger terrible
as I dash your argosy, your thunder-bearing frigate, into fragments,
as you would crack an eggshell?--No, not anger; deaf, blind, unheeding
indifference,--that is all. Out of me all things arose; sooner or later,
into me all things subside. All changes around me; I change not. I
look not at you, vain man, and your frail transitory concerns, save in
momentary glimpses: I look on the white face of my dead mistress, whom
I follow as the bridegroom follows the bier of her who has changed her
nuptial raiment for the shroud.

"Ye whose thoughts are of eternity, come dwell at my s