A Life On The Ocean Wave

Words by Epes Sargent & Music by Henry Russell

A life on the ocean wave!
A home on the rolling deep!
Where the scatter'd waters rave,
And the winds their revels keep!
Like an eagle cag'd I pine,
On this dull unchanging shore,
Oh! give me the flashing brine,
The spray and the tempest's roar!

A life on the ocean wave!
A home on the rolling deep!
Where the scatter'd waters rave,
And the winds their revels keep,
The winds, the winds
The winds their revels keep!
Once more on the deck I stand
Of my own swift gliding craft,
Set sail! farewell to the land,
The gale follows fair abaft.

We shoot thro' the sparkling foam,
Like an ocean-bird set free,
Like the ocean-bird, our home
We'll find far out on the sea!
A life on the ocean wave!

The land is no longer in view,
The clouds have begun to frown,
But with a stout vessel and crew
We'll say, let the storm come down!
And the song of our hearts shall be
While the winds and the waters rave,
A life on the heaving sea!
A home on the bounding wave!
A life on the ocean wave!