American Old Time Song Lyrics: 11 The Sea, The Sea, The Open Sea

Theater, Music-Hall, Nostalgic, Irish & Historic Old Songs, Volume 11

The Sea, the Sea, the Open 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 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, oh, how I love to ride,
On the tierce foaming, bursting tide;
When every mad wave drowns the moon,
Or whistles aloud his tempest tune,
And tells how goeth the world below,
And why the South-West blast doth blow.
I never was on the tame dull shore,
But I loved 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;
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 have lived since then in calm and strife,
Full fifty Summers a rover's life,
With wealth to spend, and power to range,
But never have sought or sighed for change;
And death whenever he comes to me,
Shall come on the wide unbounded sea.