"
Let Morris sum up the thoughts and emotions aroused by the
mystical influences of water flowing onward to join the ocean.
"Flow on, O mystical river, flow on through desert and city;
Broken or smooth flow onward into the Infinite sea.
Who knows what urges thee on?
. . .
Surely we know not at all, but the cycle of Being is eternal,
Life is eternal as death, tears are eternal as joy.
As the stream flowed it will flow; though 'tis sweet, yet the
sea will be bitter;
Foul it with filth, yet the Deltas grow green and the ocean is
clear.
Always the sun and the winds will strike its broad surface
and gather
Some purer drops from its depths to float in the clouds of the
sky;--
Soon these shall fall once again, and replenish the
full-flowing river.
Roll round then, O mystical circle! flow onward, ineffable
stream!"
CHAPTER XXII
THE OCEAN
The Ocean! What is its mystic significance? A question as
fraught with living issues as its physical object is spacious and
profound. Infinitely varied and yet unchanging; gentle and yet
terrible; radiant and yet awful;
"Calm or convulsed, in breeze, or gale, or storm,
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime
Dark heaving"--
there is not a mood with which the ocean cannot link itself, nor
a problem to which it cannot hint, albeit darkly, a solution. To
attempt a description of its external phenomena were a hardy
task--much more to grapple with its protean influences on the
souls of men.
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