| |
| THE SEA! the sea! | |
| For the light of thy waves we bless thee; | |
| For the foam on thine ancient brow; | |
| For the winds, whose bold wings caress thee, | |
| Old Ocean! we bless thee now! | 5 |
| Oh, welcome thy long-lost minstrelsy; | |
| Thy thousand voices; the wild, the free, | |
| The fresh, cool breeze o’er thy sparkling breast; | |
| The sunlit foam on each billow’s crest, | |
| Thy joyous rush up the sounding shore, | 10 |
| Thy song of Freedom for evermore, | |
| And thy glad waves shouting, ‘Rejoice! Rejoice!’ | |
| Old Ocean! welcome thy glorious voice! | |
| |
| The sea! the sea! | |
| We bless thee; we bless thee, Ocean! | 15 |
| Bright goal of our weary track, | |
| With the exile’s rapt devotion, | |
| To the home of his love come back. | |
| When gloom lay deep on our fainting hearts, | |
| When the air was dark with the Persian darts, | 20 |
| When the desert rung with the ceaseless war, | |
| And the wish’d-for fountain and palm afar, | |
| In Memory’s dreaming, in Fancy’s ear, | |
| The chime of thy joyous waves was near, | |
| And the last fond prayer of each troubled night | 25 |
| Was for thee and thine islands of love and light. | |
| |
| The sea! the sea! | |
| Sing on thy majestic paean; | |
| Leap up in the Delian’s smiles; | |
| We will dream of the blue Aegean, | 30 |
| Of the breath of Ionia’s isles; | |
| Of the hunter’s shout through the Thracian woods; | |
| Of the shepherd’s song by the Dorian floods; | |
| Of the naiad springing by Attic fount; | |
| Of the satyrs’ dance by the Cretan mount; | 35 |
| Of the sun-bright gardens, the bending vines, | |
| Our virgins’ songs by the flower-hung shrines; | |
| Of the dread Olympian’s majestic domes, | |
| Our father’s graves and our own free homes. | |
| |
| The sea! the sea! | 40 |
| We bless thee, we bless thee, Ocean! | |
| Bright goal of our stormy track, | |
| With the exile’s rapt devotion, | |
| To the home of his love come back. | |
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