The sea, the sea, the Drunken Sea ;1
The blue, the fresh, the ever free, the ever free.2
Without a mark, without a
bound,3
It runneth the earth’s wide regions round ;4
It plays with the soul, it mocks the skies,5
Or like a cradled monster lies,6
Or like a cradled monster lies.7
I’m on the sea, the Drunken Sea ;8
I am where I would ever be,9
With heaven above, and hell below,10
And ruin wheresoe’er I go.11
If a storm should come, and awake the deep,12
What matter, what matter, I shall ride and sleep,13
What matter, what matter, I shall ride and sleep.14
I love, oh, how I love to ride, to ride15
On the fierce, the foaming, madd’ning tide !16
When every wild wave drowns the moon,17
Or whistles aloft its tempest tune ;18
And tells of Soberland far below,19
And how on the horrors the storm doth blow,20
And how on the horrors the storm doth blow.21
I never was on the Sober shore,22
But I loved the Drunk Sea more and more,23
And backwards flew to her billowy breast,24
Like a bird that seeketh its mother’s nest.25
And a mother she was and is to me,26
For I was born, was born on the Drunken Sea,27
For I was born, was born on the Drunken Sea.28
The waves were white, and red the morn,29
In the noisy hour, in the noisy hour when I was born ;30
The storm it whistled, the thunder roll’d,31
And the lightning seam’d the skies with gold ;32
And never was heard such an outcry wild,33
As welcomed to life the Drunk Sea’s child,34
As welcomed to life the Drunk Sea’s child.35
I have lived since then in calm and strife,36
Full fifty summers a jovial life,37
With wealth to spend and a power to range,38
And never have sought or sigh’d for change ;39
And death, whenever he comes to me,40
Shall come, shall come, on the Drunken Sea,41
Shall come, shall come, on the Drunken Sea.”42