Broadside ballad entitled 'The Sea!'

Transcription

THE SEA!

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 sky,
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 sea below,
And silence prevails whereso'er I go.
If a storm should come & awake the deep,
What matter, I shall ride and sleep.
What matter, &c.

I love?oh, how I love to ride,
On the fierce, foaming, bursting tide !
When every mad wave drowns the moon,
Or whistles aloft the tempest tune !
And tells how goeth the world below,
And why the south-west blast doth blow.
I never was on the dull came shore,
But I lov'd the great sea more and more;
And backward flew to her billowy breast,
Like a bird that seeke hits mother's nest;
And a mother she was, and is to me,
For I was born, on the open sea.
For I was born, &c.

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,
The Dolphins bared their backs of gold;
And never was heard such an outcry wild,
As welcom'd to life the ocean child.
I have liv'd since then in calm and strife,
Full fifty summers a rover's life,
With wealth to spend, & a power to lend,
But never sought or sigh'd for change ;
And death, whenever he comes to me,
Shall come on the wild unbounded sea.
And death, &c.

Printed and Sold by JAMES LINDSAY, Stationer, &c., 9 King-
Street, Glasgow.    Upwards of 5,000 different sorts always on
hand; also, a great variety of Song-books, &c.   Shops & Travel-
rs supplied on the most moderate Terms.

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