Page:Types of Scenery and Their Influence on Literature.djvu/40

 distinct distance. But perhaps more remarkable still is the small place which the sea takes in the poetry of Burns. We must bear in mind that he was born and spent his boyhood within sight and hearing of the open Firth of Clyde. The dash of the breakers along the sandy beach behind his father's 'clay biggin' must have been one of the most familiar sounds to his young ears. Yet the allusions to the sea in his poems betray little trace of this association. They are in large measure introduced to mark the wide distance between separated friends.

It must be remembered, however, that his life, after he began to write, was passed inland, where the wide firth could only be seen from the rising ground at a distance of several miles. Yet Burns has left testimony that his imagination had not been insensible to the life and movement of the ocean. One of the most effective touches in his picture of the night scene in the 'Brigs of Ayr' is given in the reference to the neighbouring sea—

The tide-swollen Firth, wi' sullen-sounding roar. Through the still night dashed hoarse along the shore;

and when his native Muse gives him her benediction she tells how she had watched his passionate love of Nature:—

I saw thee seek the sounding shore, Delighted with the dashing roar; Or when the North his fleecy store Drove thro' the sky; I saw grim Nature's visage hoar Strike thy young eye.