Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, O SEA!, by LUCIAN B. WATKINS



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

O SEA!, by                    
First Line: O sea! O sea! O sea!
Last Line: With earth's humanity!
Subject(s): Disasters; Ships & Shipping; Shipwrecks; Titanic (ship)


O Sea! O Sea! O Sea!
Ah, raving hungry Sea!
When wilt thy heartless greed be satisfied,
Or wilt thy cruel craving be supplied
With earth's humanity!

Stay thou, O Sea, thy long and mighty arm,
That icy, icy arm,
That awful, awful arm
That sweeps so far that we
Must ever shudder with the sense of harm,
Must feel and fear with merciless alarm
The cold embrace of thee!

When rocking on the bosom of thy wave,
Thy rippling, rolling wave,
Thy swinging surging wave,
We rest in ecstasy,
Mar not the dreams of happiness we crave,
Ope not thy deep and dark abysmal grave
To seal our destiny!

Oh, spare us from yon tragic spectre there,
That grewsome spectre there;
That deadly spectre there
Where the Titanic be!
Dear hearts there to baptism did repair
In this the soul's triumphant hour of prayer,
In true nobility!

Lo! who are those great beings over there,
Those toiling figures there,
Those smiling faces there
'Mid death and misery?
They're heroes kissing babes and women fair
Farewell for homes they ne'er with them can share
Again beyond the sea!

O ye sea-gulls that wing about the scene,
This dreadful sorrow scene,
This martyr-crimson scene
Of saddest memory,
Beneath these briny waters blue and green
Lie wealth and rags alike and all they mean
Waiting eternity!

Lord God! when man had made the biggest boat,
The best and grandest boat,
The fastest moving boat
That e'er the world did see,
A golden palace on the sea afloat,
The thing on which his dearest pride did dote,
All was but vanity!

O Sea! O Sea! O Sea!
Ah, raving hungry Sea!
When wilt thy heartless greed be satisfied,
Or wilt thy cruel craving be supplied
With earth's humanity!





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