That rude simplicity of bent plank, that can breast its way through the death that is in the deep sea, has in it the soul of shipping. Beyond this, we may have more work, more men, more money; we cannot have more miracle. For there is first an infinite strangeness in the perfection of the thing as work of human hands. I know nothing else that man does which is perfect but that. All his other doings have some sign of weakness, affectation, or ignorance in them. They are over-finished or under-finished; they do not quite answer their end, or they show a mean vanity in answering it too well. But the boat's bow is naïvely perfect; complete without an effort. The man who made it knew not that he was making anything beautiful as he bent its planks into those mysterious, ever-changing curves. It grows under his hands into the image of a sea-shell, the seal, as it were, of the flowing of the great tides and streams of ocean stamped on its delicate rounding. He leaves it when all is done, without a boast. It is simple work, but it will keep out water, and every plank, thenceforward, is a fate, and has men's lives wreathed in the knots of it, as the cloth-yard shaft had their deaths in its plumes. Then, also, it is wonderful on account of the greatness of the thing accomplished. No other work of human hands ever gained so much. Steam-engines and telegraphs, indeed, help us to fetch and carry, and talk; they lift weights for us with less trouble than would have been needed otherwise ; this saving of trouble, however, does not constitute a new faculty, it only enhances the powers we already possess. But in that bow of the boat is the gift of another world. Without it, what prison wall would be so strong as that white and wailing fringe of sea? What maimed creatures were we, all chained to our rocks, Andromeda-like, or wandering by the endless shores, wasting our incommunicable strength, and pining in hopeless watch of unconquerable waves! The nails that fasten together the planks of the boat's bow are the rivets of the fellowship of the world. Their iron does more than draw lightning out of heaven, it leads love round the earth. Then, also, it is wonderful on account of the greatness of the enemy that it does battle with. To lift dead weight, to overcome length of languid space, to multiply or systematize a given force; this we may see done by the bar, or beam, or wheel, without wonder. But to war with that living fury of waters, to bare its breast, moment after moment, against the unwearied enmity of ocean; the subtle, fitful, implacable smiting of the black waves, provoking each other on endlessly, all the infinite march of the Atlantic rolling on behind them to their help, and still to strike them back into a wreath of smoke and futile foam, and win its way against them, and keep its charge of life from them. Does any other soulless thing do as much as this? JOHN RUSKIN. THE FORSAKEN MERMAN. COME, dear children, let us away; Down and away below! Now my brothers call from the bay; Now the great winds shorewards blow; This way, this way! Call her once before you go Call once yet! In a voice that she will know : 'Margaret! Margaret!' Children's voices should be dear (Call once more) to a mother's ear : Children's voices wild with pain— This way, this way! 'Mother dear, we cannot stay!' The wild white horses foam and fret. Come, dear children, come away down! One last look at the white-walled town And the little grey church on the windy shore, She will not come though you call all day. Children dear, was it yesterday We heard the sweet bells over the bay? Through the surf and through the swell, Where the spent lights quiver and gleam; When did music come this way Children dear, was it yesterday (Call yet once) that she went away? On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea, She combed its bright hair, and she tended it well, She sighed, she looked up through the clear green sea; In the little grey church on the shore to-day. And I lose my poor soul, Merman! here with thee.' Children dear, were we long alone? 'The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan. Long prayers,' I said, 'in the world they say. Come!' I said; and we rose through the surf in the bay. prayers, From the church came a murmur of folk at their For her eyes were sealed to the holy book! Loud prays the priest; shut stands the door. Come away, children, call no more! Come away, come down, call no more! Down, down, down! Down to the depths of the sea! She sits at her wheel in the humming town, Hark what she sings: 'O joy, O joy, For the humming street, and the child with its toy, And the blessed light of the sun.' Singing most joyfully, Till the shuttle falls from her hand, And the whizzing wheel stands still. She steals to the window, and looks at the sand, And her eyes are set in a stare ; A long, long sigh; For the cold strange eyes of a little Mermaiden, Come away, away, children, The hoarse wind blows colder ; Lights shine in the town. She will start from her slumber |