THE THRESHOLD OF VISION
The following prose-poem is written from the viewpoint of the national spirit, pressing toward the world vision which directly controls the thought of the previous prose-poem. For the Golden Gate, especially during the Exposition is for the quickened soul the portal—the pulling aside of the curtain through which one gets the world vision. The title, "Our Pacific Sea" might well be interpreted:
Our—Democracy.
Pacific—Nationality.
Sea—Verging into the world-vision.
Here on this shore—as prophets are, of course, doing elsewhere—we are putting our feet on the rock and looking out over the waters and into the skys. With San Diego, which is even nearer to the canal, our whole coast is peculiarly susceptible to world thought at this time. And the people who come here may forever after have an outward and upward look in their lives.
Much has been written concerning the flowers, hills and climate of California, but at this time, when the world is looking toward our coast, would that more writers would reveal the thoughts that have been inspired in their minds by the sight of our great Western sea.
The prose-poem itself is a denial of the thought that the Pacific is a monotonous calm—an appreciation both of its storms and serenity written after several visits to the beach in which both moods were displayed. The first three verses, the prelude, describe the impression made by the movement of the boisterous sea landward, upon the observor when first arriving at the shore.
OUR PACIFIC SEA
The raging of our sea!
The defiant roar of its attack on rock, cliff and shore,
Spreads the contagion of a mighty courage,
Springing from the resolute deep.
* * * * *
The voices from our sea!
Like an unending processional stealing on the soul from the double blue afar,
The eternal bass of nature's choir,
A power-inspiring undertone from profundity.
* * * * *
The laboring and heaving of her waves
Like the toiling of all humanity at its task,
Braces the will with the story
Of our faithful ocean's endless day.
* * * * *
O, great Pacific! Often calm as a sea of glass,
Who durs't say that thou cans't not live
And bestir thyself with boisterous life;
That thou cans't not with growing fury hugely to thy defense arise,
When rebuffed by wind, by rock and cliff.
Thy deep is not an incessant, idle sleep!
Thou cans't heave and leap and live with ponderous life,
Until thy waves, up from the bottom turning, are all afoam with terrible rage,
Their salty crests mounting on tangled spray
And raining back to sea a million opals.
* * * * *
We love our sea and thy reserve of strength,
For thou art indeed the favorite of our God,
For when the Son of Man spoke to the snarling waves,
Thou of all waters didst best obey and heed the Master's mandate, "Peace be still."
But He commanded not eternal quite and thou art somewhat falsely famed.
For when necessity's hour arrives,
Thou with all violent seas canst throb from deepest heart;
With unrestrained power plunging to climb the skys, crushing against the rocks—
Sublimely tempestuous, majestic in rage, in fury glorious!
* * * * *
And after the waters' landward assault,
To-day we can better ascend to observe the ocean's peace.
And here, great Sea!—
How naturally hovers infinity over that hemispheric calm,
As from this rocky, shore-projecting cliff
We behold thy endless expanse over meridians and the world, into and behind the sky—vast, serene, stupendous.
And as we gaze and worship and pray, drenched with omnipotence,
We dare with highest emotions declare
That God, not once but always, walks the seas.
* * * * *
O life giving fount, a resurrecting breeze,
We cling to our sea, an army of men in cities and fields, on streams and on hills,
Because thou dost live and let live.
For daily thy breath kisses our shores with beauty and life,
Thy varying moods are an unspeakable comfort to all manly souls.
For thy grandeur holds an invisible gate of gold,
Through which sails a celestial mariner, the spirit of our Father, God.
* * * * *
O visitors to these enchanted shores,
Join the brotherhood of the brothers of the sea—
Not dreamers, but heroic men,
Who love our rock-ribbed, templed hills and gigantic trees, but better yet, our sea!
Take the shoes from off thy feet,
For here thou art on holy ground before nature's truest Angelus,
To feel the awe of power, to think as deep as truth,
And leave a noble soul to uplift the homes of friends.
* * * * *
And deep-eyed patriots,
On every shore and from every inland city, vale and hill,
Look out and up, and live!
In spirit journey abroad over latitudes and longitudes, the equator and the sphere,
To mingle with the vision'd souls of men who gaze far out on our Pacific sea
Toward the slowly rising essential Republic of the world.
* * * * *
Fear not, move out in ship, in thought and plan—
Brave men, move out!
For on the waters of the Earth's vast deeps brotherhood has faith in Fatherhood.
And the God who bound together
The colonies on our New England shores
Will bind together the nations about the seas,
Through fearless men of faith moving toward the best
The alluring best that is still to be.
The fact that man has discovered no celestial body which contains elements other than those of the earth is more than a hint of the unity of creation" and its movement towards a single purpose.—Adapted from Josiah Strong.
