Do you feel that insatiable draw to the sea, to feel the briny breeze on your face, to labor betwixt mast and sail for the fluid horizon unknown? Well, I do. I've always felt drawn to the sea. The "draw" must be pretty mild, though, since I've nary sailed a nautical mile. Nonetheless, I feel it.
As a joke, when something isn't going the way I want it to around the house, I shout out, "I was born for the sea!" My wife laughs at the false bravado and boisterous bluster, as they know my life as a sailor never materialized. The unsad fact that I never made it aboard a clipper or sloop is unfazed by the knotted notion that I feel the fluvial current drawing me. So I never became a sailer, but that doesn't mean I can't sing about it.
So, I took a Friday afternoon to put together this fun little sea shanty, to express the humor, the longing, and something deeper that surprised me. As I wrote the archaic-style lyrics, I discovered a deeper meaning lurking in the fathom's dark of the haunting concept. Listen ye land lubers, and I'll regail ye a tail.
I Was nursed till weaned on ocean brine
Was bred to surge through swell and league
First steps as babe on sea legs, fine
I was born for the sea
In wave and tide in breeze and lee
I was born for the sea
On deck and board, I never sailed
It was a farmer’s life for me
For I see past this plow but now pale
I was born for the sea
In wave and tide in breeze and lee
I was born for the sea
Never did I touch that sea wake
Nor did my eye lay on that tide
Though I know, for heart and sake
I was born for the sea
I was born for the sea
Avast ye souls call out deep to deep
Yet see it not, we beckon be
To waters far from this mortal surf
We are born for the sea
Through birth and toil and breath and beat
We were born for the sea Ferried we be on tide born belief
We were born for the sea
