The most ancient mythologies
began with it, the latest books of science and natural observation are
still dealing with it. Myths that are older than history portray it in
lofty symbolism or in splendid histories that embody the primitive
ideals of divinity and humanity; the latest poets and painters would
fain touch their verse or their canvas with some luminous gleam from
the heart of this perpetual miracle. The unbroken procession of the
seasons changes month by month the relations of earth and sky; day and
night all the water-courses of the world rise in invisible moisture to
a fellowship with the birds that have passed on swift wing above their
currents; the great outlying seas, that sound the notes of their vast
and passionate unrest upon the shores of every continent, are
continually drawn upward to swell the invisible upper ocean which, out
of its mighty life, feeds every green and fruitful thing upon the bosom
of the earth. This movement of the oceans upon the continents through
the illimitable channels of the sky is, in some ways, the most
mysterious and the most sublime of those miracles which each day
testify to the presence and majesty of that Spirit behind Nature of
whom the greatest of modern poets thought when he wrote:
Thus at the roaring loom of time I ply
And weave for God the robe thou seest Him by.
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