From “Treasure Island,” by permission.
No man is born into the world whose work
Is not born with him: there is always work,
And tools to work withal, for those who will;
And blesséd are the horny hands of toil.—Lowell.
THE SEA
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 whereso’er I go:
If a storm should come, and awake the deep,
What matter? I shall ride and sleep.
I love, oh, how I love, to ride
On the fierce, foaming, bursting tide,
When every mad wave drowns the moon,
Or whistles aloft its tempest tune,
And tells how goeth the world below,
And why the south-west blasts do blow!
I never was on the dull, tame shore,
But I loved 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!