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‘Here, when the morning sun appears,  And scatters mists from sea and land,But turns to mist the speedwell’s tears,The very quietness is grand;For what are sands but silent seas,And border-lands of mystery?And shores, as limitless as these,Seem highways to eternity!’From ‘Southport Shore’ by English poet Thomas Costley, from the collection Sketches of Southport and Other Poems, first published in 1899.Seascape from the ‘Birkdale’ (1920), with what appear to be Cumulus congestus clouds to the left and a dying Cumulonimbus to the right, by John Everett, in the collection of the National Maritime Museum, London, England