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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 craddled 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 wheresoe'er I go.

If a storm should come and awake the deep

What matter, what matter, I shall ride and sleep.

I love--O 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 blast 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 birmant,

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.