REFLECTIONS BY SEASIDE

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 266, 9 November 1935, Page 6 (Supplement)

REFLECTIONS BY SEASIDE

Whilst the sea is yet unseen, it makes itself felt and heard. At first there is a distant, dull monotony of sound, and -gradually this far-off murmur swells into a roar which absorbs and dominates all other voices. At once the attention is arrested by the solemn alternation, the invariable return. of the deep, low note, or swelling into thunder. Not so regular the oscillation of the pendulum which measures the hours. But very far 'is its regularity from being like the uniformity of mechanic motion. We feel in it, rather, or believe we feel in it, the vibrating intonation of life. In fact, ■at the moment of the flood, when wave rises upon wave, immense, electric, there mingles with the rolling storm of the waters the murmur of the shells and the thousand various beings which are borne along with them in their course, and at the reflex of the waves there is a sound which makes us comprehend that the sea carries back along with the sands these its faithful tribes, and receives them into its bosom. Wherever one may behold the ocean, it is ever imposing and terrible. Such is it around headlands, from whence it spreads far away in all directions; such, and sometimes even more so, in those broad but circumscribed places where it is vexed and trammelled by enclosing shores, and| where-it rushes in with furious currents which hurl it high upon the rocks. In such situations as these its infinite expanse is wanting; but the spirit of its infinity is ever present; without visible sign, it makes itself felt, and even the more-powerfully for having none.