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Home  »  Yale Book of American Verse  »  113 A Life on the Ocean Wave

Thomas R. Lounsbury, ed. (1838–1915). Yale Book of American Verse. 1912.

Epes Sargent 1813–1880

Epes Sargent

113 A Life on the Ocean Wave

A LIFE on the ocean wave,

A home on the rolling deep,

Where the scattered waters rave,

And the winds their revels keep:

Like an eagle caged, I pine

On this dull, unchanging shore:

Oh! give me the flashing brine,

The spray and the tempest’s roar!

Once more on the deck I stand

Of my own swift-gliding craft:

Set sail! farewell to the land!

The gale follows fair abaft.

We shoot through the sparkling foam

Like an ocean bird set free;—

Like the ocean bird, our home

We’ll find far out on the sea.

The land is no longer in view,

The clouds have begun to frown;

But with a stout vessel and crew,

We’ll say, Let the storm come down!

And the song of our hearts shall be,

While the winds and the waters rave,

A home on the rolling sea!

A life on the ocean wave!