The Lesson of the Sea by Elizabeth E. Marcy

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Mar 2, 1911

The Lesson of the Sea

By Elizabeth E. Marcy

Go thou unto the sea, O finite man, And mete its measures with thy feeble span! Mark thou Who holds it on His open palm,— Who hurls its tempests, Who commands its calm, Who speaks above its wild, tumultuous waves, Who calls the dead from out its hidden caves. Frail, puny man, the waif of wind and tide, Lay thou thy hand in His to guard and guide.

Go thou unto the sea, God's marvelous sea; Mark thou the billowy depths' immensity: From the horizon's verge afar, afar, The mustering hosts swift gathering for war; The storm-tossed waves that mock thy puny hand, Whose foaming courses charge the trembling strand: Limitless, compassless, vast, unfathomed, free, Go stand, O puny man, beside the sea!

Go thou unto the sea; behold, behold, The priceless treasures that its caverns hold; Cities submerged, once famed in classic lore, Great ships engulfed with all their priceless store, Where rosy morn, nor yet meridian day, Find in its silent depths no answering ray; The deep, dark sea, unknown to human sight, The rayless region of perpetual night.

The great, wide sea, beyond whose frozen bars Alone in silence watch the patient stars, Beyond the reach of earth's echoing sound, The din and swirl of time's most dismal round; Shall He not compass all thy little life? Shall He not say, above its stress and strife, Who spake above the roaring, restless sea, “Peace, peace; be still, and find thy rest in Me”?

— Elizabeth E. Marcy, in Northwestern Christian Advocate.