multitude of like phenomena link themselves on to man's sadder
reveries. Morris asks:

"Peace, moaning sea; what tale have you to tell,
What mystic tidings, all unknown before?"

His answer is in terms of longing for the unrealised:

"The voice of yearning, deep but scarce expressed,
For something which is not, but may be yet;
Too full of sad continuance to forget,
Too troubled with desires to be at rest,
Too self-conflicting ever to be blest."

In strong contrast with this is the exhilarating, tonic power of
the sea. Coleridge, revisiting the seashore, cries:

"God be with thee, gladsome Ocean!
How gladly greet I thee once more."

Myers emphasises the fact that Swinburne, in his principal
autobiographical poem, "Thalassius, or Child of the Sea,"
reveals a nature for which the elemental play of the ocean is the
intensest stimulus. The author of that poem tells how once he
wandered off into indulgence of personal feelings, and how his
mother, the sea, recalled him from such wanderings to

"charm him from his own soul's separate sense
With infinite and invasive influence,
That made strength sweet in him and sweetness strong,