The Straggler: The Sea! The Sea!—John Derbyshire, hopeless landlubber, cruises toward home.

ONE day some years ago I was arguing with a Viennese friend about poetry. Though a well-educated and cultivated person, my friend claimed not to “get” poetry. How could that be? I protested. Don’t we all respond quite naturally to strongly measured and evocative lines? Listen . . . and to make my point, I quoted Tennyson’s “Break, break, break, / On thy cold grey stones, O Sea!” “Oh,” she scoffed, “you English, and this huge thing you have about the sea!”

Is it really true? En route by cruise ship from Bermuda to New York, I look out of my cabin window at the North Atlantic, trying to summon up some atavistic emotions. The sun is close to setting in a clear sky. My cabin is near the front of the ship (which is to say, the bow) and on the left-hand (which is to say, port) side, so that the sun is heading down to the horizon at my right. Between it and me is an impressive bright road of reflected sunlight on the water, as in some kitschy seascape painting. The water itself is, I would guess (having very little experience of the deep Atlantic), rather calmer than usual, inducing almost no motion at all in the ship.

About the Author

John Derbyshire

Mr. Derbyshire is a former contributing editor of National Review.

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ONE day some years ago I was arguing with a Viennese friend about poetry. Though a well-educated and cultivated person, my friend claimed not to “get” poetry. How could that be? I protested. Don’t we all respond quite naturally to strongly measured and evocative lines? Listen . . . and to make my point, I quoted Tennyson’s “Break, break, break, / On thy cold grey stones, O Sea!” “Oh,” she scoffed, “you English, and this huge thing you have about the sea!”

Is it really true? En route by cruise ship from Bermuda to New York, I look out of my cabin window at the North Atlantic, trying to summon up some atavistic emotions. The sun is close to setting in a clear sky. My cabin is near the front of the ship (which is to say, the bow) and on the left-hand (which is to say, port) side, so that the sun is heading down to the horizon at my right. Between it and me is an impressive bright road of reflected sunlight on the water, as in some kitschy seascape painting. The water itself is, I would guess (having very little experience of the deep Atlantic), rather calmer than usual, inducing almost no motion at all in the ship.