below, the "tenth" surge alone rallying as if in scorn of its
retreating fellow, and, like the chieftain of Culloden Moor, rushing
back singly to the contest. And now that the waters reach the entrance
no more, come forward and look on the sea! The swell lifts! Would you
not think the bases of the earth rising beneath it? It falls! Would
you not think the foundation of the deep had given way? A plain, broad
enough for the navies of the world to ride at large, heaves up evenly
and steadily as if it would lie against the sky, rests a moment
spell-bound in its place, and falls again as far--the respiration of a
sleeping child not more regular and full of slumber. It is only on the
shore that it chafes. Blessed emblem! it is at peace with itself! The
rocks war with a nature so unlike their own, and the hoarse din of
their border onsets resounds through the caverns they have rent open;
but beyond, in the calm bosom of the ocean, what heavenly dignity! what
godlike unconsciousness of alarm! I did not think we should stumble on
such a moral in the cave!

By the deeper bass of its hoarse organ the sea is now playing upon its
lowest stops, and the tide is down. Hear how it rushes in beneath the
rocks, broken and stilled in its tortuous way, till it ends with a
washing and dull hiss among the sea-weed, and, like a myriad of small
tinkling bells, the dripping from the crags is audible. There is fine
music in the sea!

And now the beach is bare. The cave begins to cool and darken, and the
first gold tint of sunset is stealing into the sky, and the sea looks
of a changing opal, green, purple, and white, as if its floor were
paved with pearl, and the changing light struck up through the waters.
And there heaves a ship into the horizon like a white-winged bird,
lying with dark breast on the waves, abandoned of the sea-breeze within