The sea awoke at midnight from its sleep, And round the pebbly beaches far and wide I heard the first wave of the rising tide Rush onward with uninterrupted sweep; A voice out of the silence of the deep, A sound mysteriously multiplied As of a cataract from the mountain's side, Or roar of winds upon a wooded steep. So comes to us at times, from the unknown And inaccessible solitudes of being, The rushing of the sea-tides of the soul; And inspirations, that we deem our own, Are some divine of foreshadowing and foreseeing Of things beyond our reason or control. by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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 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 welcom’d to life the ocean-child! by Barry Cornwall

I smile o'er the wrinkled blue­ Lo! the sea is fair, Smooth as the flow of a maiden's hair; And the welkin's light shines through Into mid-sea caverns of beryl hue, And the little waves laugh and the mermaids sing, And the sea is a beautiful, sinuous thing! I scowl in sullen guise­ The sea grows dark and dun, The swift clouds hide the sun But not the bale-light in my eyes, And the frightened wind as it flies Ruffles the billows with stormy wing, And the sea is a terrible, treacherous thing! When moonlight glimmers dim I pass in the path of the mist, Like a pale spirit by spirits kissed. At dawn I chant my own weird hymn, And I dabble my hair in the sunset's rim. by Lucy Maud Montgomery

Come o’er the Sea in sunshine, storms, and snows; wherever the wild wind blows. Seasons may roll, But the true soul Burns the same, where'er it goes. Was not the sea Made for the Free, Land for courts and chains alone? Here we are slaves, But, on the waves, Love and Liberty's all our own. No eye to watch, and no tongue to wound us All earth forgot, and all heaven around us. by Thomas Moore

Below the gardens and the darkening pines The living water sinks among the stones, Sinking yet foaming till the snowy tones Merge with the fog drawn landward in dim lines. The cloud dissolves among the flowering vines, And now the definite mountain-side disowns The fluid world, the immeasurable zones. Then white oblivion swallows all designs. But still the rich confusion of the sea, Unceasing voice, sombre and solacing, Rises through veils of silence past the trees; In restless repetition bound, yet free, Wave after wave in deluge fresh releasing An ancient speech, hushed in tremendous ease.