_Sea-Fever_
I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a gray mist on the sea’s face and a gray dawn breaking.
I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.
I must down to the seas again to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s
like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.
_John Masefield_
_A Son of the Sea_
I was born for deep-sea faring;
I was bred to put to sea;
Stories of my father’s daring
Filled me at my mother’s knee.
I was sired among the surges;
I was cubbed beside the foam;
All my heart is in its verges,
And the sea wind is my home.
All my boyhood, from far vernal
Bournes of being, came to me
Dream-like, plangent, and eternal
Memories of the plunging sea.
_Bliss Carman_
_Dreams of the Sea_
I know not why I yearn for thee again,
To sail once more upon thy fickle flood;
I’ll hear thy waves wash under my death-bed,
Thy salt is lodged forever in my blood.
Yet I have seen thee lash the vessel’s sides
In fury, with thy many tailèd whip;
And I have seen thee, too, like Galilee,
When Jesus walked in peace to Simon’s ship.
And I have seen thy gentle breeze as soft
As summer’s, when it makes the cornfields run;
And I have seen thy rude and lusty gale
Make ships show half their bellies to the sun.
Thou knowest the way to tame the wildest life,
Thou knowest the way to bend the great and proud:
I think of that Armada whose puffed sails,
Greedy and large, came swallowing every cloud.
But I have seen the sea-boy, young and drowned
Lying on shore and, by thy cruel hand,
A seaweed beard was on his tender chin,
His heaven-blue eyes were filled with common sand.
And yet, for all, I yearn for thee again,
To sail once more upon thy fickle flood:
I’ll hear thy waves wash under my death-bed,
Thy salt is lodged forever in my blood.
_William H. Davies_
_Going Down in Ships_
Going down to sea in ships
Is a glorious thing,
Where up and over the rolling waves
The sea-birds wing;
Oh, there’s nothing more to my heart’s desire
Than a ship that plows
Head-on down through marching seas,
With streaming bows:
Would you hear the song of the viewless winds
As they walk the sky?
Come down to sea when the storm is on
And the men stand by.
Would you see the sun as it walked abroad
On God’s First Day?
Then come where dawn makes sea and sky
A gold causeway.
Oh, it’s bend the sails on the criss-cross yards,
For the day dies far,
And up a windless space of dusk
Climbs the evening star....
Now there’s gulf on foaming gulf of stars
That lean so clear
That it seems the bastions of heaven
Are bright and near,
And that, any moment, the topmost sky
May froth and swim
With an incredible bivouac
Of seraphim....
O wide-flung dawn, O mighty day
And set of sun!
O all you climbing stars of God,
Oh, lead me on!...
_Harry Kemp_
_The Waves of Breffny_
The grand road from the mountain goes shining to the sea,
And there is traffic in it and many a horse and cart,
But the little roads of Cloonagh are dearer far to me,
And the little roads of Cloonagh go rambling through my heart.
A great storm from the ocean goes shouting o’er the hill,
And there is glory in it; and terror on the wind:
But the haunted air of twilight is very strange and still,
And the little winds of twilight are dearer to my mind.
The great waves of the Atlantic sweep storming on their way,
Shining green and silver with the hidden herring shoal;
But the little waves of Breffny have drenched my heart in spray,
And the little waves of Breffny go stumbling through my soul.
_Eva Gore-Booth_
_Short Beach_
Oh, the salt wind in my nostrils!
And the white sail in the creek!
And the blue beyond the marshes!
And the flag at the peak!
My soul lifts to the bugles
Of a far cry on the breeze--
The cry of my storm-kin calling
Overseas, overseas!
Blow, horns of the old sea-rapture!
When your call comes from afar,
I would rise from the grave to reach you
Where the sea-dooms are.
_Richard Hovey_
_Sea Call_
My old love for the water has come back again--
I had forgotten its surging, so long, so long away;
Sapphire-blue in the sunlight and green-gray in the rain,
And the same waves cresting, and the same sharp spray,
There was left a wave in my heart when I went to the inland towns,
Something that moved and murmured in the days when I forgot;
Vivid flowers of the gardens or thick long grass of the downs--
What were the sweets of the summer days, where the
calling waves were not?
My old love for the water has come back once more;
The wave of the deep draws full, and the wave in my heart lifts high;
This is my own old country and my own old shore ...
And I cannot leave the water till the day I die.
_Margaret Widdemer_
_Ship-Love_
When God gave to all men
All the earth to love
He gave them the waters under the sea,
He gave them the sky above;
And some love the waters,
And some love the sky;
But I love the tall ships
That go sailing by.
For when God gave to my heart
The warm living blood
He gave me, too, the passion
For ebb-tide and flood;
And my love is ship-love,
For tall ships and strange,
For steam-ships and sailing ships
The whole wide range.
And when God calls my spirit
And claims the soul of me
He’ll find it a-wandering
With ships on the sea;
He’ll find it on a warm deck
Dreaming in the sun,
Long after I am perished
And my earth-life done.
_Ethel E. Mannin_
_The Sea_
I call thee from the changing land
To the unchanging sea;
I bring a bride-gift in my hand
Of immortality.
The land is fair, but fairer far
The pastures of the sea.
Canst thou reach down the lowest star?
My sea-fires gleam for thee.
All rivers run unto one end
And perish in the sea;
Turn thou from lover and from friend,
And give thy heart to me.
Thy love shall suffer change and dearth,
Thy friend the years estrange;
There is no faithfulness on earth--
The sea will never change.
_Nora Hopper_
_Coquette_
I am wearied with insatiable longing
For that laughing, blue-eyed wanton called the sea.
Though she’s but a faithless rover
And the wide world’s willing lover
I’d be content if she would share an hour with me.
If she would toss me on her restless, throbbing bosom,
Caress a moment--and then flout me in my pain,
I would barter all the treasures
Of the rich man’s million pleasures
To be rocked within her siren arms again.
Her honey voice is luring, mocking, calling!
Her sapphire scalloped skirts are piped with foam:
And her light feet shoreward dancing,
Pearly-sandalled and entrancing,
Entice the steps of men from love and home.
False and cruel is her glittering lure;
Her gifts are death and woe’s delirium--
Yet heaven holds no blisses
Like the sharp tang of her kisses--
Ah! Coquette! if you should slay me, I must come!
_Keith Stuart_
_The Deep-Water Man_
O give me the Pole Star overhead,
A slithering deck to my feet,
A forward bunk for my downy bed,
And the sea for my village street,
The galley’s glow for my warm hearthstone,
And my mates for my kin and friends--
Then earth’s long leagues are my very own
To the place where the round world ends.
There’s never a richer man than I,
Nor a poorer under the sun;
For all of my boundless riches lie
In the things I have seen and done--
The songs I’ve sung and the laughs I’ve laughed--
Oh, that’s wealth as it ought to be,
For when the Skipper shall call me aft
I can take it along with me.
A-roaring down the Atlantic lanes,
Or cruising a tropical sea,
The balmy Trades, or the wind-whipped rains,
Are a bit of the same to me.
I’m home wherever the anchors fall
And take my idolatrous ease--
I’ve got a girl in each port of call
To be found on the seven seas.
Oh, loves I’ve known that were deep and strong,
Of some ports I am more than fond,
But woman nor town can hold me long
From the call of the ones beyond.
So, ever and always outward bound
(Well, I guess it’s the fate of some)
Till the day their keels go hard aground
In the Port of the Kingdom Come.
_James Stuart Montgomery_
_Sea Longing_
You who are inland born know not the pain
Of one who longs for gray dunes and the seas
And sound of ebbing tide and windy rain
And sea-mews crying down immensities.
You who are inland born, know not the urge
Of rapt tides beating passionate and wild;
Nor have you thrilled with wonder at the surge
Of drifting water, wayward as a child.
Impetuous I seek the eager sea,
Imperious for joy and wind-blown spray;
You, who are city-beaten every day,
What do you know of mirth and ecstasy?
No thirsty wind has journeyed from the South--
And laid a cool, wet finger on your mouth!
_Harold Vinal_
_Had I the Choice_
Had I the choice to tally greatest bards,
To limn their portraits, stately, beautiful, and emulate at will,
Homer with all his wars and warriors--Hector, Achilles, Ajax,
Or Shakspere’s woe-entangled Hamlet, Lear,
Othello--Tennyson’s fair ladies,
Metre or wit the best, or choice conceit to wield in perfect
rhyme, delight of singers;
These, these, O sea, all these I’d gladly barter,
Would you the undulation of one wave, its trick to me transfer,
Or breathe one breath of yours upon my verse,
And leave its odor there.
_Walt Whitman_
_Gray_
A bleak wind is riding on the waves,
And the shadowy foam is hurled;
And the gray rains are on the hills
And a gray dusk is over the world.
And bleak moods and shadowy moods
Move like the moods of the sea,
And mist, like a gray unspoken thought,
Is looking strangely at me.
And I am lost in grayness,
My dreams are still and furled,
For the gray rains are on the hills
And a gray dusk is over the world.
_Oscar Williams_
_A Pagan Hymn_
I have drunk the Sea’s good wine,
And to-day
Care has bowed his head and gone away.
I have drunk the Sea’s good wine,
Was ever step so light as mine,
Was ever heart so gay?
Old voices intermingle in my brain,
Voices that a little boy might hear,
And dreams like fiery sunsets come again,
Informulate and vain,
But great with glories of the buccaneer.
Oh, thanks to thee, great Mother, thanks to thee,
For this old joy renewed,
For tightened sinew and clear blood imbued
With sunlight and with sea.
Behold, I sing a pagan song of old,
And out of my full heart,
Hold forth my hands that so I would enfold
The Infinite thou art.
What matter all the creeds that come and go,
The many gods of men?
My blood outcasts them from its joyous flow,
And it is now as then--
The Pearl of Morning, and the Sapphire Sea,
The Diamond of Noon,
The Ruby of the Sunset--these shall be
My creed, my Deity;
And I will take some old forgotten tune,
And rhythm frolic-free,
And sing in little words thy wondrous boon,
O Sunlight and O Sea!
_John Runcie_
_As the Tide Comes In_
The long-winged terns dart wild and dire,
As the tide comes tumbling in.
The calm rock-pools grow all alive,
With the tide tumbling in,
The crab that under the brown weed creeps,
And the snail who lies in his house and sleeps,
Awake and stir, as the plunging sweep
Of the tide comes tumbling in.
The driftwood swishes along the sand,
As the tide comes tumbling in.
With wreck and wrack from many a land,
On the tide, tumbling in.
About my feet are a broken spar,
A pale anemone’s torn sea-star
And scattered scum of the waves’ old war,
As the tide comes tumbling in.
And, oh, there is a stir at the heart of me,
As the tide comes tumbling in.
All life once more is a part of me,
As the tide tumbles in.
New hopes awaken beneath despair
And thoughts slip free of the sloth of care,
While beauty and love are everywhere--
As the tide comes tumbling in.
_Cale Young Rice_
_A Wet Sheet and a Flowing Sea_
A wet sheet and a flowing sea,--
A wind that follows fast,
That fills the white and rustling sail,
And bends the gallant mast,--
And bends the gallant mast, my boys,
While, like the eagle free,
Away the good ship flies, and leaves
Old England on the lee.
Oh, for a soft and gentle wind!
I heard a fair one cry;
But give to me the snoring breeze,
And white waves heaving high,--And
white waves heaving high, my boys,
The good ship tight and free;
The world of waters is our home,
And merry men are we.
There’s tempest in yon hornèd moon,
And lightning in yon cloud;
And hark the music, mariners!
The wind is piping loud,--
The wind is piping loud, my boys,
The lightning flashing free;
While the hollow oak our palace is,
Our heritage the sea.
_Allan Cunningham_
_The Undersong_
I hear the sea-song of the blood in my heart,
I hear the sea-song of the blood in my ears:
And I am far apart,
And lost in the years.
But when I lie and dream of that which was
Before the first man’s shadow flitted on the grass,
I am stricken dumb
With sense of that to come.
Is then this wildering sea-song but a part
Of the old song of the mystery of the years--
Or only the echo of the tired heart
And of tears?
_Fiona Macleod_
_Gray Rocks and Grayer Sea_
Gray rocks, and grayer sea,
And surf along the shore--
And in my heart a name
My lips shall speak no more.
The high and lonely hills
Endure the darkening year--
And in my heart endure
A memory and a tear.
Across the tide a sail
That tosses, and is gone--
And in my heart the kiss
That longing dreams upon.
Gray rocks, and grayer sea,
And surf along the shore--
And in my heart the face
That I shall see no more.
_Charles G. D. Roberts_
_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 (oh! 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 south-west blasts do blow.
I never was on the dull tame shore,
But I lov’d the great Sea more and more,
And backward 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 come to me,
Shall come on the wide unbounded Sea!
_Bryan Waller Procter_
_The Sea Road_
Oh, green curved the hill road and beckoned to my feet,
Where the breath of the uplands came drifting fitful-sweet.
Moon mist, and cloud mist, and meadows drenched with dew,
Fir breath, and fern breath, and hill-winds stealing through
To stir the vagrant poppy-blooms that gipsy through the wheat.
But nearer and clearer than these there called to me
A little, waiting, dune-set road that comrades with the sea.
Oh, bright shone the plains’ road in ribbonings of gold,
Past lowly cottage casements tucked beneath a green hill’s fold.
Peat smoke, and hearth smoke, and toiler’s wayside fire,
Wife love, and child’s love, and humble hearts’ desire,
Peace and fireside plenty was the tale its windings told.
Yet nearer and clearer than these there called to me
A small road, dark with juniper, and open to the sea.
A little, watchful, sea-wife road unmindful of the gales,
All kirtled blue with sunlit waves, and coiffed with speeding sails.
Far sail, and near sail, the beating sea-gulls’ wings,
Far lands, the near lands, the lullaby she sings,
All the ports of all the world are in her whispered tales.
Ah, nearer and dearer than all there cries to me,
One little, crooning, sunset road set shoulder to the sea.
_Martha Haskell Clarke_
_The Sea_[3]
I
Interminable, not to be divined,
The ocean’s solemn distances recede;
A gospel of glad color to the mind,
But for the soul a voice of sterner creed.
The sadness of unfathomable things
Calls from the waste and makes the heart give heed
With answering dirges, as a seashell sings.