Читать книгу The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism (Vol. 1-4). The History of Sea Voyages, Discovery, Piracy and Maritime Warfare онлайн

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The poets have seen in it a “type of the Infinite,” and one of the greatest1 has taken us back to those early days of earth’s history when God said—

“ ‘Let there be firmament

Amid the waters, and let it divide

The waters from the waters.’ …

So He the world

Built on circumfluous waters calm, in wide

Crystalline ocean.”

“Water,” said the great Greek lyric poet,2 “is the chief of all.” The ocean covers nearly three-fourths of the surface of our globe. Earth is its mere offspring. The continents and islands have been and still are being elaborated from its depths. All in all, it has not, however, been treated fairly at the hands of the poets, too many of whom could only see it in its sterner lights. Young speaks of it as merely a

“Dreadful and tumultuous home

Of dangers, at eternal war with man,

Wide opening and loud roaring still for more,”

ignoring the blessings and benefits it has bestowed so freely, forgetting that man is daily becoming more and more its master, and that his own country in particular has most successfully conquered the seemingly unconquerable. Byron, again, says:—