EL ELPRO INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL, PUNE

Resource sheet
Session: 2021-22
Name: Date:

Subject: English Class: VII

Prepared by: Ayushi Samant Topic: The Sea

Learning objective: The students will be able to recall what they have learnt in an effective way,
which involves practise in understanding and answering questions in an appropriate manner in
their assessments: it would also involve practise in delivering the quality of an answer required
rather than quantity.

 
THE SEA! the sea! the open sea!
The blue, the fresh, the ever free!
Without a mark, without a bound,
It runneth the earth’s wide regions round;
       
It plays with the clouds; it mocks the skies;
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Or like a cradled creature lies.
 
I ’m on the sea! I ’m on the sea!
I am where I would ever be;
With the blue above, and the blue below,
        
And silence wheresoe’er I go;
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If a storm should come and awake the
deep,
What matter? I shall ride and sleep.

The poet Bryan Waller Procter has described the sea in various forms and has given certain qualities to it.
He describes the sea as blue in colour and fresh as ever. The sea runs through the different regions of the
earth. It is free, it plays with the clouds and also mocks the skies as the sea or ocean and the sky meet
together at a point called as horizon and form a flat line where the earth seems to meet the sky.
Further the poet says, he is on the sea as he is a sailor and is free to relish the moments of freedom. He is at
the right place where he should be. He is with the blue sky above and the crystal water which is bluish in
colour beneath him. While wandering over the sea, he experiences the silence all around and imagines
what if he is struck by a storm? He would dive over it and shall ride the storm within.

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 I love, oh, how I love to ride
On the fierce, foaming, bursting tide,
        
When every mad wave drowns the moon,
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Or whistles aloft his tempest tune,
And tells how goeth the world below,
And why the sou’west blasts do blow.
 
I never was on the dull, tame shore,
        
But I loved the great sea more and more,
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And backwards flew to her billowy breast,
Like a bird that seeketh its mother’s nest;
And a mother she was, and is, to me;
For I was born on the open sea!

The poet expresses his love for sea as he attributes human qualities to it. He loves to ride the fierce tide
which thrills him. The foaming waves appear as if they are drowning the moon with its violent sound. He
was always passionate towards his work as he was on the sea more than the sea shore. As the bird seeks its
nest to stay with the mother and feels like home, just in a similar way the poet feels the sea as his home.
The sea is like a mother to him as he was born on the open sea and he loves the great sea more and more.

        
The waves were white, and red the morn,
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In the noisy hour when I was born;
And the whale it whistled, the porpoise
rolled,
And the dolphins bared their backs of gold;
And never was heard such an outcry wild
        
As welcomed to life the ocean-child!
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I ’ve lived since then, in calm and strife,
Full fifty summers, a sailor’s life,
With wealth to spend and a power to range,
But never have sought nor sighed for change;
        
And Death, whenever he comes to me,
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Shall come on the wild, unbounded sea!

When the poet was born, the sea appeared to be filled with crystal white waves in the early morning
where the sky appeared to be red. In that noisy hour, the whales welcomed his birth by blowing its
whistle and the porpoise rolled around. The dolphins welcomed him by their sweet gestures wherein they

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swam backwards with their shining gold back. Nobody ever heard such a grand welcome of a child as he
was welcomed as the ocean child !
From his birth till the end he has lived his life with calm and peace amidst of the sea for full fifty
summers as a sailor's life.He never strived for wealth and power as he had an etrnal love for the sea. He
prayed to the almighty as whenever death will knock his door, he will be on the unbounded wild sea and
wishes to rest in peace in the arms of the sea.

Poetic device-
Personification-

It is a kind of figure of speech. Personification gives human traits and qualities, such as emotions, desires,
sensations, gestures and speech, often by way of a metaphor. Personification is much used in visual arts.

 Examples are "the leaves waved in the wind", "the ocean heaved a sigh" or "the Sun smiled at us" etc.

In this poem, the poet has given certain human traits and qualities to the sea.

Example-
Or whistles aloft his tempest tune
In this line, the poet has given the quality of whistling with a violent sound to the sea and has given a
human attribute to it.

3-When does the sea appear to sleep and when does it seem to be awake?