Stand.

The gale was still blowing violently. Many of the smaller trees bowed their tops, as if ready to descend to the earth, while the rushing of the wind through the branches of the groves resembled the roar of distant chariots.

The air was filled with leaves, which, at that late season, were readily driven from their stems, and flew from island to island like flights of birds. With this exception, the spot seemed silent as the grave. That the savages still remained, was to be inferred from the fact that their canoes, together with the boats of the 55th, lay in a group in the little cove that had been selected as a harbor. Otherwise, not a sign of their presence was to be detected. Though taken entirely by surprise by the cutter, the sudden return of which was altogether unlooked-for, so uniform and inbred were their habits of caution while on the war-path, that the instant an alarm was given every man had taken to his cover with the instinct and cunning of a fox seeking his hole. The same stillness reigned in the blockhouse; for though Pathfinder and Cap could command a view of the channel, they took the precaution necessary to lie concealed. The unusual absence of anything like animal life on board the Scud, too, was still more remarkable. As the Indians witnessed her apparently undirected movements, a feeling of awe gained a footing among them, and some of the boldest of their party began to distrust the issue of an expedition that had commenced so prosperously. Even Arrowhead, accustomed as he was to intercourse with the whites on both sides of the lakes, fancied there was something ominous in the appearance of this unmanned vessel, and he would gladly at that moment have been landed again on the main.

In the meantime the progress of the cutter was steady and rapid. She held her way mid-channel, now inclining to the gusts, and now rising again, like the philosopher that bends to the calamities of life to resume his erect attitude as they pass away, but always piling the water beneath her bows in foam. Although she was under so very short canvas, her velocity was great, and there could not have elapsed ten minutes between the time when her sails were first seen glancing past the trees and bushes in the distance and the moment when she was abreast of the blockhouse. Cap and Pathfinder leaned forward, as the cutter came beneath their eyrie, eager to get a better view of her deck, when, to the delight of both, Jasper Eau-douce sprang upon his feet and gave three hearty cheers. Regardless of all risk, Cap leaped upon the rampart of logs and returned the greeting, cheer for cheer. Happily, the policy of the enemy saved the latter; for they still lay quiet, not a rifle being discharged. On the other hand, Pathfinder kept in view the useful, utterly disregarding the mere dramatic part of warfare. The moment he beheld his friend Jasper, he called out to him with stentorian lungs,—

“Stand by us, lad, and the day's our own! Give 'em a grist in yonder bushes, and you'll put 'em up like partridges.”

James Fenimore Cooper, from The Pathfinder, or The Inland Sea

God.

TAHQUAMENON FALLS

I sit alone, here in my easy chair,

Inspired by thoughts that are my very own.

Once more I breathe the pure pine-scented air,

And wander through the forests I have known.

It seems I see the great Tahquamenon,

And hear the thunder of the waterfall.

I watch the ambered waters rolling on,

And gaze up at the forest trees so tall.

I think of legends that I came to know

Of this great stream where golden waters run

Laughing and splashing to the falls below,

Its falling waters sparkling in the sun.

A pathway leads me through the wilderness,

Under the cliffs where cateracts appear;

A strange enchanting land of loneliness,

The domain of the beaver, bear, and deer.

I think of all these things as I recall

The sighing trees, the happy songs of birds;

The music of the distant waterfall,

That lovely forest song that has no words.

May we preserve such wilderness as this

Where men make paths for other men to trod,

Where nature offers solitude and bliss,

Where nature’s beauty makes one think of God.

Arthur Franklin Mapes

Outside.

Wouldn't it be nice, for a change, if there were another way out of our difficulties! A short cut. A method requiring no greater personal effort than recording a vote or ordering some "enemy of society" to be shot. A salvation from outside, like a dose of calomel.

Aldous Huxley, from Eyeless in Gaza

Image.

A woman I know says that to look at the Sleeping Bear late in the day is to feel the same emotion that comes when you listen to Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto, and she is entirely right. The message is the same. The only trouble is that you have to compose a planet, or great music, to say it persuasively. Maybe man–some men, anyway–was made in the image of God, after all.

Bruce Catton, from Waiting for the Morning Train

Move.

TIDELESS LAKE

You move as though the moon

pulls you, though it's away is nominal

when compared to the wind,

the atmospheric pressure, 

the will of your waves

to creep up the shore

and caress the dunes.

reminding me I do not need 

a moon to move.

Mae Stier

The Longest Johns, "Mingulay Boat Song"

When the wind is wild with shouting,

And the waves mount ever higher,

Anxious eyes turn ever seaward,

To see us home safe to Mingulay ...

Deep.

Whistler, Violet and Silver - The Deep Sea, 1893

Happy Birthday, Golding

I find it very difficult to talk here now because I'm watching the sea all the time. The sea always makes me watch it all the time. I've spent hours and hours not just on the sea but just watching wave after wave come in. If it's an image of anything, I think it's an image of our own unconscious, the unconscious of our own minds... or you can put it the other way around, and that is that we have a sea in us. After all, we are sea creatures that learnt to walk on the land, are we not? And perhaps one way or another we go back to it. Every night when we dream we go back into that kind of depths, and that kind of beauty and monstrosity and mystery. So really the sea is not a single image, it can really image almost anything that the human mind can discover.

William Golding, born on this day in 1911

Happy Birthday, Walton

Huysmans, Portrait of Walton, 1672

Rivers and the inhabitants of the watery elements are made for wise men to contemplate and for fools to pass by without consideration. 

Izaak Walton

Purity.

THE OCEAN 

The Ocean has its silent caves,

Deep, quiet, and alone;

Though there be fury on the waves,

Beneath them there is none.

The awful spirits of the deep

Hold their communion there;

And there are those for whom we weep,

The young, the bright, the fair.

Calmly the wearied seamen rest

Beneath their own blue sea.

The ocean solitudes are blest,

For there is purity.

The earth has guilt, the earth has care,

Unquiet are its graves;

But peaceful sleep is ever there,

Beneath the dark blue waves.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Better.

Happy Birthday, Constable

Constable, The Sea near Brighton, 1826

John Constable was born on this day in 1776.

Done.

Done and done.

Indespensable.

There is great good in returning to a landscape that has had extraordinary meaning in one’s life. There are certain villages and towns, mountains and plains that, having seen them, walked in them, lived in them, even for a day, we keep forever in the mind’s eye.

They become indispensable to our well being; they define us, and we say, I am who I am because I have been there.

It is here that I can concentrate my mind upon the Remembered Earth. It is here that I am most conscious of being, here that wonder comes upon my blood, here I want to live forever; and it is no matter that I must die.

N. Scott Momaday

Pleasure.

From the ground the quills he gathered,

All the little shining arrows,

Stained them red and blue and yellow,

With the juice of roots and berries;

Into his canoe he wrought them,

Round its waist a shining girdle,

Round its bows a gleaming necklace,

On its breast two stars resplendent.

  Thus the Birch Canoe was builded

In the valley, by the river,

In the bosom of the forest;

And the forest's life was in it,

All its mystery and its magic,

All the lightness of the birch-tree,

All the toughness of the cedar,

All the larch's supple sinews;

And it floated on the river

Like a yellow leaf in Autumn,

Like a yellow water-lily.

  Paddles none had Hiawatha,

Paddles none he had or needed,

For his thoughts as paddles served him,

And his wishes served to guide him;

Swift or slow at will he glided,

Veered to right or left at pleasure.

  Then he called aloud to Kwasind,

To his friend, the strong man, Kwasind,

Saying, "Help me clear this river

Of its sunken logs and sand-bars."

  Straight into the river Kwasind

Plunged as if he were an otter,

Dived as if he were a beaver,

Stood up to his waist in water,

To his arm-pits in the river,

Swam and shouted in the river,

Tugged at sunken logs and branches,

With his hands he scooped the sand-bars,

With his feet the ooze and tangle.

  And thus sailed my Hiawatha

Down the rushing Taquamenaw,

Sailed through all its bends and windings,

Sailed through all its deeps and shallows,

While his friend, the strong man, Kwasind,

Swam the deeps, the shallows waded.

  Up and down the river went they,

In and out among its islands,

Cleared its bed of root and sand-bar,

Dragged the dead trees from its channel,

Made its passage safe and certain,

Made a pathway for the people,

From its springs among the mountains,

To the waters of Pauwating,

To the bay of Taquamenaw.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, from "The Song of Hiawatha"

Calls.

Homer, Sandy Beach with Breakers, 1869

The tide rises, the tide falls,

The twilight darkens, the curlew calls;

Along the sea-sands damp and brown

The traveller hastens toward the town,

      And the tide rises, the tide falls.

Darkness settles on roofs and walls,

But the sea, the sea in the darkness calls;

The little waves, with their soft, white hands,

Efface the footprints in the sands,

      And the tide rises, the tide falls.

The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls

Stamp and neigh, as the hostler calls;

The day returns, but nevermore

Returns the traveller to the shore,

      And the tide rises, the tide falls.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Broke.

Cosmos Borealis: Light skin of sky and cloud and mountain on the still pond. Water body beneath teeming with reeds and silt and trout (sealed in day skin and night skin and ice lids), which we draw out with silk threads, fitted with snags of fur or bright feathers. Skin like glass like liquid like skin; our words scrieved the slick surface (reflecting risen moon, spinning stars, flitting bats), so that we had only to whisper across the wide plate. Green drakes blossomed powder dry among the stars, glowing white, out of pods, which rose from the muck at the bottom of the pond and broke open on the skin of the water. We whispered across the galaxies, who needs Mars?

Paul Harding

Done.

Done and done.

Take.

The OUTLET

My river runs to thee:  

Blue sea, wilt welcome me?  

   

My river waits reply.  

Oh sea, look graciously!  

   

I'll fetch thee brooks

From spotted nooks,—  

   

Say, sea,  

Take me!

Emily Dickinson

Heard.

Chatham, Fall Moon Rising, n/d

GOING for WATER

The well was dry beside the door,
And so we went with pail and can
Across the fields behind the house
To seek the brook if still it ran;

Not loth to have excuse to go,
Because the autumn eve was fair
(Though chill) because the fields were ours,
And by the brook our woods were there.

We ran as if to meet the moon
That slowly dawned behind the trees,
The barren boughs without the leaves,
Without the birds, without the breeze.

But once within the wood, we paused
Like gnomes that hid us from the moon,
Ready to run to hiding new
With laughter when she found us soon.

Each laid on other a staying hand
To listen ere we dared to look,
And in the hush we joined to make
We heard—we knew we heard—the brook.

A note as from a single place,
A slender tinkling fall that made
Now drops that floated on the pool
Like pearls, and now a silver blade.

Robert Frost