My Ships by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

My Ships

If all the ships I have at sea 

Should come a-sailing home to me, 

From sunny lands, and lands of cold, 

Ah well! the harbor could not hold 

So many sails as there would be 

If all my ships came in from sea. 

If half my ships came home from sea, 

And brought their precious freight to me, 

Ah, well! I should have wealth as great 

As any king who sits in state, 

So rich the treasures that would be 

In half my ships now at sea. 

If just one ship I have at sea 

Should come a-sailing home to me, 

Ah well! the storm clouds then might frown, 

For if the others all went down 

Still rich and proud and glad I’d be, 

If that one ship came back to me. 

If that one ship were down at sea, 

And all the others came to me, 

Weighed down with gems and wealth untold, 

With glory, honor, riches, gold, 

The poorest soul on earth I’d be 

If that one ship came not to me. 

O skies be calm! O winds blow free-- 

Blow all my ships safe home to me. 

But if thou sendest some awrack 

To never more come sailing back, 

Send any--all that skim the sea-- 

But bring my love-ship home to me. 

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Secret of the Sea

The Secret of the Sea 
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

Ah! what pleasant visions haunt me
   As I gaze upon the sea!
All the old romantic legends,
   All my dreams, come back to me.
Sails of silk and ropes of sandal,
   Such as gleam in ancient lore;
And the singing of the sailors,
   And the answer from the shore!
Most of all, the Spanish ballad
   Haunts me oft, and tarries long,
Of the noble Count Arnaldos
   And the sailor's mystic song.
Like the long waves on a sea-beach,
   Where the sand as silver shines,
With a soft, monotonous cadence,
   Flow its unrhymed lyric lines:--
Telling how the Count Arnaldos,
   With his hawk upon his hand,
Saw a fair and stately galley,
   Steering onward to the land;--
How he heard the ancient helmsman
   Chant a song so wild and clear,
That the sailing sea-bird slowly
   Poised upon the mast to hear,
Till his soul was full of longing,
   And he cried, with impulse strong,--
"Helmsman! for the love of heaven,
   Teach me, too, that wondrous song!"
"Wouldst thou,"--so the helmsman answered,
   "Learn the secret of the sea?
Only those who brave its dangers
   Comprehend its mystery!"
In each sail that skims the horizon,
   In each landward-blowing breeze,
I behold that stately galley,
   Hear those mournful melodies;
Till my soul is full of longing
   For the secret of the sea,
And the heart of the great ocean
   Sends a thrilling pulse through me.

FREE: Poetry by: Eugene O'Neill

FREE
Eugene O'Neill (1888 - 1953)

Weary am I of the tumult, sick of the staring crowd,
Pining for wild sea places where the soul may think aloud.
Fled is the glamor of cities, dead as the ghost of a dream,
While I pine anew for the tint of blue on the breast of the old Gulf Stream.

I have had my dance with Folly, nor do I shirk the blame;
I have sipped the so-called Wine of Life and paid the price of shame;
But I know that I shall find surcease, the rest my spirit craves,
Where the rainbows play in the flying spray,
'Mid the keen salt kiss of the waves.

Then it's ho! for the plunging deck of a bark, the hoarse song of the crew,
With never a thought of those we left or what we are going to do;
Nor heed the old ship's burning, but break the shackles of care
And at last be free, on the open sea, with the trade wind in our hair. 

Lassitude .... Mathilde Blind

Lassitude

I laid me down beside the sea, Endless in blue monotony; The clouds were anchored in the sky. Sometimes a sail went idling by. Upon the shingles on the beach Grey linen was spread out to bleach, And gently with a gentle swell The languid ripples rose and fell. A fisher-boy, in level line, Cast stone by stone into the brine: Me thought I too might do as he, And cast my sorrows on the sea. The old, old sorrows in a heap Dropped heavily into the deep; But with its sorrow on that day My heart itself was cast away. Mathilde Blind

A Life on the Ocean Wave

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 shore:

Oh! give me the flashing 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!

A life on the ocean wave!

Epes Sargent

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epes_Sargent

Sea Fever... By John Masefield

Sea Fever

I must go down to the sea 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 grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go 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 go 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 (1878-1967)

The Sound of the Sea

The Sound of the Sea

THE sea awoke at midnight from its sleep,
And round the pebbly beaches far and wide
I heard the first wave of the rising tide
Rush onward with uninterrupted sweep;
A voice out of the silence of the deep,
A sound mysteriously multiplied
As of a cataract from the mountain's side,
Or roar of winds upon a wooded steep.
So comes to us at times, from the unknown
And inaccessible solitudes of being,
The rushing of the sea-tides of the soul;
And inspirations, that we deem our own,
Are some divine foreshadowing and foreseeing
Of things beyond our reason or control.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow