The Life of a Ship

Oh! I love the great blue ocean, I love the whistling breeze, When the gallant ship sweeps lightly Across the surging seas. I watched my first ship building; I saw her timbers rise, Until her masts were towering Up in the bright blue skies. I heard the cheers ascending, I saw her kiss the foam, When first her hull went plunging Into her ocean home. Her flags were gaily streaming, And her sails were full and round, When the shout from shore came ringing, “Hurrah! for the Outward-bound!” But, alas! ere long a tempest Came down with awful roar And dashed our ship in pieces Upon a foreign shore. But He who holds the waters In His almighty hand, Brought all the sailors safely Back to their native land.
Davy was a fisher boy; and Davy was a very active little boy; and Davy wanted to go to sea. His father was a fisherman, his grandfather had been a fisherman, and his great-grandfather had been a fisherman: so we need not wonder much that little Davy took to the salt water like a fish. When he was very little he used to wade in it, and catch crabs in it, and gather shells on the shore, or build castles on the sands. Sometimes, too, he fell into the water neck and heels, and ran home to his mother, who used to whip him and set him to dry before the fire; but, as he grew older, he went with his father in the boat to fish, and from that time forward he began to wish to go to sea in one of the large ships that were constantly sailing away from the harbour near his father’s cottage.
One day Davy sat on a rock beside the sea, leaning on his father’s boathook, and gazing with longing eyes out upon the clear calm ocean, on which several ships and boats were floating idly, for there was not a breath of wind to fill their sails.
“Oh, how I wish my father would let me go to sea!” said Davy, with a deep sigh. “I wonder if I shall ever sail away beyond that line yonder, far, far away, where the sky seems to sink into the sea!” The line that he spoke of was the horizon.