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The spirit of adventure, desire to live, a weariness of a curbed and routine life, come to Alden with his first sight of the ocean.

Written for the main part in free verse, but ever possessing harmonious cadence, there are various breaks in Stork's general style with lines like the sea song with which the book begins:

I have lent myself to thy will, O Sea! To the urge of thy tidal sway; My soul to thy lure of mystery, My cheek to thy lashing spray. For there's never a man whose blood runs warm But would quaff the wine of the brimming storm. As the prodigal lends have I lent to thee, For a day or a year and a day.

The shores recede, the great sails fill,