BIRDS ftND NftTURE 



ILLUSTRATED BY COLOR PHOTOGRAPHY. 



THE SEA 



The sea ! the sea ! the open sea ! 

 The bkie, the fresh, the ever free ! 

 Without a mark, without a bound, 

 It runneth the earth's wide region 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 wheresoe'er I go; 



If a storm should come and awake the 



deep, 

 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 blasts do blow. 



I never was on the dull, tame shore. 

 But I lov'd the great sea more and more, 

 And backwards flew to her billowy 



breast. 

 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 ! 



The waves were white, and red the 



morn, 

 In the noisy hour when I was born ; 

 And the whale it whistled, the porpoise 



roll'd. 

 And the dolphins bared their backs of 



gold ; 

 And never was heard such an outcry wild 

 As welcomed to life the ocean-child ! 



I've liv'd since then, in calm and strife, 



Full fifty summers, a sailor's life, 



With wealth to spend and a power to 



range. 

 But never have sought nor sighed for 



change ; 

 And Death, whenever he comes to me. 

 Shall come on the wild, unbounded sea ! 

 — Bryan Waller Procter 

 {"Barry Cornwall") 



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