"Tho' inland far we be,
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither."

And of intense interest as modernising the ancient concept of
"_Something_ which breathed without breath," is his appeal:

"Listen, the mighty Being is awake,
And doth with his eternal motion make
A sound like thunder--everlastingly."

It will not be possible to do more than draw attention to those
chief characteristics of the ocean which have given it so large a
place in the minds of men. And first would come the vastness of
the sea, which prompts vague intuitions of mystery and infinity.
The sight of its limitless expanse still has this power. "The sea
(says Holmes) belongs to eternity, and not to time, and of that it
sings for ever and ever." How natural, then, the trend of the
mythology just mentioned, and the belief in a primeval ocean--a
formless abyss--Tiâmat--which, as Milton puts it in a splendid
line, is:

"The womb of nature and perhaps her grave."

But added to the mystic influence of sheer limitlessness are the
manifestations of power and majesty, which compel the awe
and wonder of those who "go down to the sea in ships and do
their business in great waters." In the minds of early navigators,
the experience of the terrors of the sea begot a sense of
relationship to hostile powers. One of the oldest Aryan words