Chapter V.
Rossetti.

As far as quantity is concerned the sea plays a small rôle in Rossetti's verse, but all that he has written about

it is so original and characteristic that it can hardly be omitted from a study of this kind. Indeed if he had

The

given us nothing except the short poem called the Sea-Limits his contribution would still be of great value. profoundly sad and thoughtful tone of these twenty-eight lines strikes the note of his more usual treatment of the Rossetti's sea has neither the invigorating qualities beloved of Clough, nor the great and lofty peace so

sea.

dear to Arnold, but

"it hath

The mournfulness of ancient life,

Enduring always at dull strife.

As the world's heart of rest and wrath,
Its painful pulse is in the sands."

It expresses the weary weight of the ages:

"Time's self it is, made audible,

The murmur of the earth's own shell.

Secret continuance sublime

Is the sea's end: our sight may pass

No furlong further. Since time was,

This sound hath told the lapse of time.

It makes vocal the desire and mystery" that encompass all

created things; its voice is one with that of solitary

woods and that of "thronged men",

"And Earth, Sea, Man, are all in each."

It seems to me that we may read in Rossetti's treatment of

a sad acceptance of

the sea something of his philosophy, life as unknown and unknowable, with much of beauty, much of love, but more of pain and yearning. other poem that belongs wholly to the sea the White Ship;

if Rossetti

There is but one

added to English sea poetry no expression

of patriotic enthusiasm, perhaps he did some thing better in giving it this splendid historical ballad. The story,

one of revelry, shipwreck, heroism, death, is too well known

to need comment; but of special interest to this study is

striking

the description of the ship upon the sunken rock,

"The ship was eager and sucked athirst,

By the stealthy stab of the sharp reef pierced;

And like the moil round a sinking cup,

The waters against her crowded up;

the panic stricken people

"To the toppling decks clave one and all

As a fly cleaves to a chamber-wall;'

the return of the Prince's boat,

"Like a leaf that's drawn to a water-wheel; "

"It turned as a bucket turns in a well,

And nothing was there but the surge and swell."

Especially fine is the contrast between Berold's visions the blithe morning greetings, the calling

down in the sea

mothers, the ringing church-bells- and the shuddering, moonlit deep to which he rises, the bitter winter sea on which

he and another float,

"Where lands were none 'neath the dim sea-sky."

Perhaps A Sea-Spell should be added to the list of seapoems with its noble suggestiveness:

"What netherworld gulf-whispers doth she hear,

In answering echoes from what planisphere,

Along the wind, alond the estuary?"

In Even So the background is the sea,

"Sea and sky, afar, on high

Sand and strewn sea-weed,

But the sea stands spread