19 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 whereso’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 sou’west blasts do blow.

I never was on the dull, tame shore

But I loved 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 power to range,

But never have sought or sighed for change;

And Death, whenever he comes to me,

Shall come on the wild, unbounded sea!

( Bryan Waller Procter )

Biography

Bryan Waller Procter (1787-1874) was an English poet who wrote under the name “Barry Cornwall.” Though he spent a busy life as a practicing lawyer, he wrote a number of books—essays, biographies, and poetry. His best poems are his songs, and of these “The Sea” is one of the most famous.

Word list

bursting : breaking

aloft : in the air

tame : not wild

You Practice

Answer the following questions.

1) Who is speaking in the poem?

2) When does the sea play with the clouds?

3) What is “the blue above”?

4) Why does the shore seem tame to the sailor?

5) What does the speaker compare himself to when he returns from the shore?

6) What caused the noise described in the poem?