Volume Iii Part 61 (1/2)

THE SEA

The sea! the sea! the open sea!

The blue, the fresh, the ever free!

Without a mark, without a bound, It runneth the earth's wide regions round; It plays with the clouds; it mocks the skies; Or like a cradled creature lies.

I'm on the sea! I'm on the sea!

I am where I would ever be; With the blue above, and the blue below, And silence wheresoe'er I go; If a storm should come and awake the deep, What matter? I shall ride and sleep.

I love, O, how I love to ride On the fierce, foaming, bursting tide, When every mad wave drowns the moon Or whistles aloft his tempest tune, And tells how goeth the world below, And why the sou'west blasts do blow.

I never was on the dull, tame sh.o.r.e, But I loved the great sea more and more.

And backwards flew to her billowy breast, Like a bird that seeketh its mother's nest; And a mother she was, and is, to me; For I was born on the open sea!

The waves were white, and red the morn, In the noisy hour when I was born; And the whale it whistled, the porpoise rolled, And the dolphins bared their backs of gold; And never was heard such an outcry wild As welcomed to life the ocean-child!

I've lived since then, in calm and strife, Full fifty summers, a sailor's life, With wealth to spend and a power to range, But never have sought nor sighed for change; And Death, whenever he comes to me, Shall come on the wild, unbounded sea!

Bryan Waller Procter [1787-1874]

SAILOR'S SONG From ”Death's Jest-Book”

To sea, to sea! The calm is o'er; The wanton water leaps in sport, And rattles down the pebbly sh.o.r.e; The dolphin wheels, the sea-cows snort, And unseen mermaids' pearly song Comes bubbling up, the weeds among.

Fling broad the sail, dip deep the oar; To sea, to sea! the calm is o'er.

To sea, to sea! our wide-winged bark Shall billowy cleave its sunny way, And with its shadow, fleet and dark, Break the caved Tritons' azure day, Like mighty eagle soaring light O'er antelopes on Alpine height.

The anchor heaves, the s.h.i.+p swings free, The sails swell full. To sea, to sea!

Thomas Lovell Beddoes [1803-1849]

”A LIFE ON THE OCEAN WAVE”

A life on the ocean wave, A home on the rolling deep, Where the scattered waters rave, And the winds their revels keep!

Like an eagle caged, I pine On this dull, unchanging sh.o.r.e: Oh! give me the flas.h.i.+ng brine, The spray and the tempest's roar!

Once more on the deck I stand Of my own swift-gliding craft: Set sail! farewell to the land!

The gale follows fair abaft.

We shoot through the sparkling foam Like an ocean-bird set free;-- Like the ocean-bird, our home We'll find far out on the sea.

The land is no longer in view, The clouds have begun to frown; But with a stout vessel and crew, We'll say, Let the storm come down!

And the song of our hearts shall be, While the winds and the waters rave, A home on the rolling sea!