Sea Treasures

"A MERMAID" by John William Waterhouse

Leagues, leagues over the sea I sail
couched on a wallowing dolphin's tail.
The sky is on fire, the waves a-sheen,
I dabble my foot in the billows green.
In a sea-weed hat on the rocks I sit,
where tern and sea-mew glide and beat,
and where dark shadows the cormorants meet.
In caverns cool when the tide's a wash,
I sound my conch to the watery splash.
From out their grottoes at evenings beam,
The mermaids swim with locks agleam,
To where I watch on the yellow sands
They pluck sweet music with sea-cold hands.
They bring me coral and amber clear.
But when the stars in heaven appear,
their music ceases, they glide away.
They swim for their grottos across the bay.
Then listen only to my shrill tune,
the surfy tide, and the wondering moon.
~Walter de la Mare

I shall wear white flannel trousers
And walk upon the beach,
I have heard the mermaids singing
Each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
~T.S. Eliot

Cast your eyes on the ocean
Cast your soul to the sea
When the dark night seems endless
Please remember me
Please remember me.
~Loreena McKenitt-Dante's Prayer

Come o'er the moonlight sea,
The waves are brightly glowing
~Charles Jefferys

And the lost heart stiffens and rejoices,
And the lost lilac and the lost sea voices
And the weak spirit quickens to rebel
For the bent goldenrod and the lost sea smell.
~T.S. Elliot

I heard the sirens song
calling me into the sea
the deep blue gray
outstreaching its fingers
as if to say......
come to me
I have heard this vioce
in my mind before
i thought it was a dream
but it was the sea bekoning
to me.... as if to say.....
come to me
I heeded the siren
i walked into the sea
the force was over whelming
as it called to me......
come to me
i am a child of the sea
perhaps a mermaid
or a queen
I was called by the powers
that beckoned to me
I can raise the ocean tide
and then watch it ebb
carrying with it
all my troubles
and easing my head
My days are now endless
and my powers are strong
and i call out to others
with the siren song.....
come to me
I have found my place
amoungst the seaweed
and shells
i have realized the power
and i call it my home
~Sherry Livesay

Sea Fever
I must go down to the sea again,
to the lonely sea and the sky
And all I ask is a tallship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking
And a gray mist on the sea's face, and a gray dawn breaking.

I must go down to the sea again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the sea again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way, where wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.
~John Masefield

The Chambered Nautilus
This is the ship of pearl which, poets feign,
Sails the unshadowed main,-
The venturous bark that flings
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,
And coral reefs lie bare,
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;
Wrecked is the ship of pearl!
And every chambered cell,
Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies revealed,-
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!

Year after year beheld the silent toil
That spread his lustrous coil;
Still, as the spiral grew,
He left the past year’s dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
Built up its idle door,
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,
Child of the wandering sea,
Cast from her lap, forlorn!
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn!
While on mine ear it rings,
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:-

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler that the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length are free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unreasting sea!
~Oliver Wendell Holmes

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