Poetry Of The Sea
Campbell was a great lover of submarine prospects. "Often in my
boyhood," says the poet, "when the day has been bright and the sea
transparent, I have sat by the hour on a Highland rock admiring the
golden sands, the emerald weeds, and the silver shells at the bottom of
the bay beneath, till, dreaming about the grottoes of the Nereids, I
would not have exchanged my pleasure for that of a connoisseur poring
over a landscape by Claude or Poussin. Enchanting nature! thy beauty is
not only in heaven and earth, but in the waters under our feet. How
magnificent a medium of vision is the pellucid sea! Is it not like
poetry, that embellishes every object that we contemplate?"
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