Quotes
Quotes about Sea
Sooth 't were a pleasant life to lead,
With nothing in the world to do
But just to blow a shepherd's reed,
The silent season thro'
And just to drive a flock to feed,--
Sheep--quiet, fond and few!
The best thing I know between France and England is the sea.
Enchantress of the stormy seas,
Priestess of Night's high mysteries.
I wiped away the weeds and foam,
I fetched my sea-born treasures home;
But the poor, unsightly, noisome things
Had left their beauty on the shore,
With the sun and the sand and the wild uproar.
Wilt thou seal up the avenues of ill?
Pay every debt, as if God wrote the bill!
A ruddy drop of manly blood
The surging sea outweighs;
The world uncertain comes and goes,
The lover rooted stays.
Old England is our home, and Englishmen are we;
Our tongue is known in every clime, our flag in every sea.
The wild sea roars and lashes the granite cliffs below,
And round the misty islets the loud strong tempests blow.
Curse away!
And let me tell thee, Beauseant, a wise proverb
The Arabs have,--"Curses are like young chickens,
And still come home to roost."
Two lives that once part are as ships that divide
When, moment on moment, there rushes between
The one and the other a sea;--
Ah, never can fall from the days that have been
A gleam on the years that shall be!
When stars are in the quiet skies,
Then most I pine for thee;
Bend on me then thy tender eyes,
As stars look on the sea.
Come o'er the moonlit sea,
The waves are brightly glowing.
The morn was fair, the skies were clear,
No breath came o'er the sea.
A word in season spoken
May calm the troubled breast.
My soul is full of longing
For the secret of the Sea,
And the heart of the great ocean
Sends a thrilling pulse through me.
Moons waxed and waned, the lilacs bloomed and died,
In the broad river ebbed and flowed the tide,
Ships went to sea, and ships came home from sea,
And the slow years sailed by and ceased to be.
Now gold hath sway; we all obey
And a ruthless king is he;
But he never shall send our ancient friend
To be tost on the stormy sea.
Lady Moon, Lady Moon, where are you roving?
Over the sea.
Lady Moon, Lady Moon, whom are you loving?
All that love me!
And statesmen at her council met
Who knew the seasons, when to take
Occasion by the hand, and make
The bounds of freedom wider yet.
Broad based upon her people's will,
And compassed by the inviolate sea.
Ah, when shall all men's good
Be each man's rule, and universal peace
Lie like a shaft of light across the land,
And like a lane of beams athwart the sea,
Thro' all the circle of the golden year?
Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace!
I am going a long way
With these thou seest--if indeed I go
(For all my mind is clouded with a doubt)--
To the island-valley of Avilion,
Where falls not hail or rain or any snow,
Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies
Deep-meadowed, happy, fair with orchard lawns
And bowery hollows crowned with summer sea,
Where I will heal me of my grievous wound.
Ambition
Is like the sea wave, which the more you drink
The more you thirst--yea--drink too much, as men
Have done on rafts of wreck--it drives you mad.
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.
