Tiefer Stille herrscht im Wasser,
Ohno Regung ruht das Meer,
Und bekümmert sieht der Schiffer
Glatte Flache rings umher.

Keine Luft von keiner Seite!
Todesstille fürchterlich!
In der ungeheuern Weite
Reget keine Welle sich.

Thus does Goethe, in this little poem of two verses, with a
masterly ease that carries conviction, suggest to us the subtle
power of a calm at sea. The mountain tarn, alone with the sky,
has a charm that is all its own. The shining levels of the lake, in
the lower hollows of the hills; the quiet reaches of a river where
the stream seems to pause and gather strength for its onward
course; even the still pool that hides in the meadows among the
alders and willows: each of these has its own peculiar charm--a
charm which is hard to analyse but almost universal in its range
of appeal. But potent above them all is this Meeresstille, this
calm at sea--when, as Bowring finely translates Goethe's second
verse:

"Not a zephyr is in motion!
Silence fearful as the grave!
In the mighty waste of ocean
Sunk to rest is every wave."

Turner, in his "Liber Studiorum," attempted to depict a calm at