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| OH, sing me a song of the sea, my son— | |
| Oh, sing me a song of the sea! | |
| For my eyes they are blind and I peer in the dark, | |
| But my man’s heart leaps when the sea-dogs bark; | |
| Can thy young eyes follow the yelping pack? | 5 |
| Wild, bounding streaks of yellow and black, | |
| Do they track over meadows of seething foam? | |
| And will they be fetching the white gulls home? | |
| Perhaps they’ll retrieve one to me— | |
| To me, sitting blind by the sea. | 10 |
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| To me in my door by the sea, sitting blind, | |
| To me, sitting blind in my door, | |
| Days be when a battle is raging afar, | |
| And the tramp of the cavalry crossing the bar | |
| Comes nearer and clearer with many a gun, | 15 |
| So plain to my ears while I sit in the sun | |
| That I’m sure there’ll be many a rainbow at play | |
| In and out of the manes and the tails of the spray, | |
| As the chargers plunge down in the roar | |
| To me, sitting blind in my door. | 20 |
| |
| To me, sitting blind in the night by the sea, | |
| Sitting blind by the sea in the night, | |
| Times be when she purrs, a gray cat, at my knee— | |
| Oh, the glow on the hearth and the mother and thee! | |
| ’Twas a hitch in her rocker that memory kept, | 25 |
| And I’d know when it eased that our wee laddie slept. | |
| The sea has it all, to the creak in her chair, | |
| And I, peering blind, see the glint in her hair; | |
| And it floods my lone soul with delight, | |
| Sitting dark in my door in the night. | 30 |
| |
| To me, sitting dark by the sea in my door, | |
| To me, by the sea sitting blind, | |
| Rare times comes a silence as still as a cave, | |
| And I know ’tis His night when He walks on the wave; | |
| And, “strong in the faith,” with my feet on the land, | 35 |
| My soul speeds beside Him. I’d strive for His hand | |
| To lay on my eyes, but ah! ever before | |
| I reach Him, He’s gone—and I back in my door, | |
| All alone, by a whiff of the wind, | |
| In my door by the sea, sitting blind. | 40 |
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| Still it’s sing me a song of the sea, my son— | |
| Oh, sing me a song of the sea! | |
| And sorrow’s slow leaven I’ll nurse nevermore, | |
| For the soul of the sea signals mine on the shore, | |
| Deep calling to deep, high answering high, | 45 |
| Till my bosom seems gemmed with the stars of the sky; | |
| And when the moon nestles, a pearl on my vest, | |
| I feel her white soul come again to my breast; | |
| And with this, lad—the mother—and thee, | |
| Are we lonely or blind by the sea? | 50 |
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