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 wheresoever 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,
Where every mad wave drowns the
      moon,
And whistles aloft its tempest tune,
And tells how goeth the world below,
And why the southwest wind doth
      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 her mother's
      nest,--
And a mother she was and is to me,
For I was born on the open sea.

        ~ Barry Cornwall