"Shall I not be scattered presently to mix with the mingling of all
these myriads? How should I rise again? Never, never again can I become
the same."
"The same thou never art," returned the Sea, "at any two moments in thy
running: perpetual change is the law of thy being. What is thine 'I'?
Always thou art shaped with the substance of waves forgotten,--waves
numberless beyond the sands of the shores of me. In thy multiplicity
what art thou?--a phantom, an impermanency!"
"Real is pain," sobbed the Wave,--"and fear and hope, and the joy of the
light. Whence and what are these, if I be not real?"
"Thou hast no pain," the Sea responded,--"nor fear nor hope nor joy.
Thou art nothing--save in me. I am thy Self, thine 'I': thy form is my
dream; thy motion is my will; thy breaking is my pain. Break thou must,
because there is no rest in me; but thou wilt break only to rise
again,--for death is the Rhythm of Life. Lo! I, too, die that I may
live: these my waters have passed, and will pass again, with wrecks of
innumerable worlds to the burning of innumerable suns. I, too, am
multiple unspeakably: dead tides of millions of oceans revive in mine
ebb and flow. Suffice thee to learn that only because thou wast thou
art, and that because thou art thou wilt become again."