The ocean / By P. H. Gosse.

  • Gosse, Philip Henry, 1810-1888.
Date:
[pref. 1845]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The ocean / By P. H. Gosse. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Expanded like a sky above the speck ; That speck became a hand-breadth ; day and night It spread, accumulated, and ere long Presented to my view a dazzling plain, White as the moon amid the sapphire sea ; Bare at low water, and as still as death; But when the tide came gurgling o’er the surface, ’Twas like a resurrection of the dead ; From graves innumerable, punctures fine In the close coral, capillary swarms Of reptiles, horrent as Medusa’s snakes, Cover’d the bald-pate reef; then all was life, And indefatigable industry ; The artizans were twisting to and fro, In idle-seeming convolutions ; yet They never vanish’d with the ebbing surge, Till pellicle on pellicle, and layer On layer, was added to the growing mass. Ere long the reef o’ertopp’d the spring-flood’s height, And mock’d the billows when they leap’d upon it, Unable to maintain their slippery hold, And falling down in foam-wreaths round its verge. Steep were the flanks, with precipices sharp, Descending to their base in ocean-gloom, Chasms few, and narrow, and irregular, Form’d harbours, safe at once and perilous,— Safe for defence, but perilous to enter. A sea-lake shone amidst the fossil isle, Reflecting in a ring its cliffs and caverns, With heaven itself seen like a lake below.” * The islands of the second class seem to have been originally of the same structure as those already noticed, but have been elevated to the height of one hundred to five hundred feet, by some unknown agency. The character of their vegetation resem- bles that of the volcanic isles, of which I shall pre- sently speak, but they do not possess their sub- * Montgomery’s Pelican Island.