The history of Lynn - Lynn Massachusetts Genealogy Project

252 HISTORY OF LYNX.majestic deep. At a little distance from the shore is a rowof huge porpoises, rolling and tumbling after each other, andbreaking the uniformity of the water by their rude gambols-At about the same distance, sit a flock of black ducks, silentlyrising and sinking with every motion of the tide. On thesmooth sands of the beach, the edge of the seawhite line,terminates in aconstantly broken, and as constantly renewed, gentlyroUing the pebbles, and tinkling the shells with a light andsilvery cadence. Along the rough edges of the cliiF, the wavesbreak in hoarser murmurs, dashing among the rocks, waving theblue flowery tops of the green sea plants in the pools between,and gliding over the shelving projections of the ledge infancifulcascades. He who frequents the shore will observe, thatevery ninth wave runs farther upon the beach, and breaks withmore force upon the rocks, than the preceeding. This appearancewas noticed by Hoel, an ancient bard of Wales.My love is of the hue of the foam of the ninth wave.Then when the night comes down, and the broad moon risesover the bright ocean, the whole scene is softened by herinfluence. The sounds of day are hushed, and the silence isonly broken by the low and pensive murmur of the waves.Thebeaches glisten beneath her ray, and the various substances,which the tide has cast upon them, glitter with a phosporicglow, of such intense briUIancy, that the eye is deceived intothe momentary belief that they are fire. The pebbles of quartzand chalcedony, give out all their lustre, and sometimes looklike live coals. The green uplands smile in the soft radiance,and as the moonlight strikes the summits of the taU rocks.Their giant shadows frown,From lofty cliff to cave, descending sombre down.At Nahant may also be witnessed one of the sublimest spectaclesin nature—a view of the Ocean, in a storm. Standingupon a high promontory, and surrounded on three sides by thesea, the waves are beheld accumulating, and swelling, and rolling,and foaming onwards, like animated mountains, and break-