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Some of the English language's finest poetry has been written about the sea. Here's a selection of Julian's favourites (some are excerpts, due to length):
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Crossing the Bar
by Lord Tennyson
Sunset and
evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put to sea
But such a tides as moving seems asleep,
Too full of sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home
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Twilight and evening bell
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell
When I embark
For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar>
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Sea
Fever by John Masefield
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 sails
shaking,
And the grey mist
in 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;
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And all I ask is a
windy day
with the white
clouds flying,
And the flung spray
and the blown spume,
and the seagulls
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 ere the long
trip’s over
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Psalm
107
They that go down to the sea in ships, and occupy their business in great waters.
These men see the works of the Lord; and his wonders in the deep...
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Full Fathom Five
by William Shakespeare (Tempest)
Full fathom five they father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea change
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Into something rich and
strange.
Sea nymphs hourly ring his knell;
Ding dong.
Hark! Now I hear them -
Ding dong, bell!
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Song
of Myself by Walt Whitman
You sea! I resign myself to
you also - I guess what you mean,
I behold from the beach your crooked inviting fingers,
I believe you refuse to go back without feeling of me,
We must have a turn together, I undress, hurry me out of sight of the
land,
Cushion me soft, rock me in billowy drowse,
Dash me with amorous wet, I can repay you. Sea of stretch'd
ground-swells,
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Sea breathing broad and convulsive breaths,
Sea of the brine of life and of unshovell'd yet always-ready graves,
Howler and scooper of storms, capricious and dainty sea,
I am integral with you, I too am of one phase and of all phases.
Partaker of influx and efflux I, extoller of hate and conciliation,
Extoller of amies and those that sleep in each others' arms. |
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Childe Harold's Pilgrimage by Lord Byron
Dark-heaving, boundless, endless, and sublime. The image of Eternity...
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The
Wreck of the Deutschland by Gerald Hopkins
She drove in the dark to leeward,
She struck -- not a reef or a rock
But the combs of a smother of sand: night drew her
Dead to the Kentish Knock;
And she beat the bank down with her
bows and the ride of her keel:
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The breakers rolled on her beam with ruinous shock;
And canvas and compass, the whorl and the wheel
Idle for ever to waft her or wind her with, these she endured. |
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Rime
of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
The furrow followed free;
We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea.
Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down,
’Twas sad as sad could be;
And we did speak only to break
The silence of the sea !
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All in a hot and copper sky,
The bloody Sun, at noon,
Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the Moon.
Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion ;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.
Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink ;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink. |
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Shipwreck
by William Falconer
Again she plunges! hark! a
second shock
Bilges the splitting vessel
on the rock;
Down on the vale of death,
with dismal cries;
The fated victims shuddering
cast their eyes |
In wild despair; while yet
another stroke
With strong convulsion rends
the solid oak;
Ah Heavens! --behold her
crashing ribs divide!
She loosens, parts, and
spreads in ruin o’er the tide |
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Wreck
of the Hesperus by Henry Longfellow
And ever the fitful gusts between
A sound came from the land;
It was the sound of the trampling surf,
On the rocks and hard sea-sand.
The breakers were right beneath her bows,
She drifted a dreary wreck,
And a whooping billow swept the crew
Like icicles from her deck.
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She struck where the white and fleecy waves
Looked soft as carded wool,
But the cruel rocks, they gored her side
Like the horns of an angry bull.
Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice,
With the masts went by the board;
Like a vessel of glass, she stove and sank,
Ho! ho! the breakers roared! |
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The Kiss of a
Seaman Anon, Roxburghe Ballads, 17C
When first I
chanc’t to be among them
I was belov’d of divers young men
And with a modest mild behaviour
That did intreat my love and favour
But this I learned from my mother -
The kiss of a Seaman's worth two of another
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Blare gentlemen of rank and fashion
That live, most richly in the nation
Have woo’d and su’d, as brave as may be
That I might have been a pretty lady
Love’s fiery beams I cannot smother -
The kiss of a Seaman's worth two of another |
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On the Sea
John Keats
It keeps eternal
whisperings around
Desolate shores, and with its mighty swell
Gluts twice ten thousand caverns, till the spell
Of Hecate leaves them their old shadowy sound.
Often ’tis in such gentle temper found
That scarcely will the very smallest shell
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Be moved for days from whence it sometime fell
When last the winds of heaven were unbound.
Oh ye! whose ears are dinned with uproar rude
Or fed too much with cloying melody -
Sit ye near some old cavern's mouth, and brood
Until ye start, as if the sea nymphs quired! |
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Roadways by John Masefield
One road leads to London,
One road leads to Wales,
My road leads me seawards
To the white dipping sails.
One road leads to the river,
And it goes singing slow;
My road leads to shipping,
Where the bronzed sailors go.
Leads me, lures me, calls me
To salt green tossing sea;
A road without earth’s road-dust
Is the right road for me.
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A wet road heaving, shining,
And wild with seagull’s cries,
A mad salt sea-wind blowing
The salt spray in my eyes.
My road calls me, lures me
West, east, south, and north;
Most roads lead men homewards,
My road leads me forth.
To add more miles to the tally
Of grey miles left behind,
In quest of that one beauty
God put me here to find. |
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The
Boy stood on the Burning Deck (Casabianca) by
Felicia Dorothea Hemans
The boy stood on the burning deck
Whence all but he had fled;
The flame that lit the battle’s wreck
Shone round him o'er the dead.
Yet beautiful and bright he stood,
As born to rule the storm;
A creature of heroic blood,
A proud, though childlike form.
The flames roll’d on...he would not go
Without his father’s word;
That father, faint in death below,
His voice no longer heard.
He call’d aloud..."Say, father,say
If yet my task is done!"
He knew not that the chieftain lay
Unconscious of his son.
"Speak, father!" once again he cried
"If I may yet be gone!"
And but the booming shots replied,
And fast the flames roll’d on.
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Upon his brow he felt their breath,
And in his waving hair,
And looked from that lone post of death,
In still yet brave despair;
And shouted but one more aloud,
"My father, must I stay?"
While o’er him fast, through sail and shroud
The wreathing fires made way,
They wrapt the ship in splendour wild,
They caught the flag on high,
And stream’d above the gallant child,
Like banners in the sky.
There came a burst of thunder sound...
The boy-oh! where was he?
Ask of the winds that far around
With fragments strewed the sea.
With mast, and helm, and pennon fair,
That well had borne their part;
But the noblest thing which perished there
Was that young faithful heart. |
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The
Mexico Barque by
Corncrake Williams
Listen without to the westerly wind
Does it whisper and gently sigh?
Or rage and roar, shaking the door
Demanding that seafarers die...
On such a night in the distant past
As surf raced hight up the beach
Mexico barque on a bank was fast
No port that night would she reach
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Three lifeboats to her aid were sent
By fisherman manned with good intent
One boat returned her crew to save
The others would drown in a watery grave
Father and son, brothers too
Perished that night in the lifeboats' crew
Seven and twenty died they in vain?
Question it not, they would do it again
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Ye Mariners of England by
Thomas Campbell
Ye Mariners of England
That guard our native seas;
Whose flag has braved a thousand years;
The battle and the breeze!
Your glorious standard launch again
To match another foe
And sweep through the deep,
While the stormy winds do blow
While the battle rages loud and long,
And the stormy winds do blow...
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The meteor flag of England
Shall yet terrific burn;
Till danger’s troubled night depart;
And the star of peace return.
Then, then, ye ocean warriors,
Our song and feast shall flow
To the fame of your name,
When the storm has ceased to blow;
When the fiery light is heard no more,
And the storm has ceased to blow.
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