The vast blue ocean and its cool waters have long inspired poets as have adventures at sea. Here is a collection of ocean-related poems from renowned poets.
- "The Ocean" by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Ocean" poem discusses lost sailors. It contains the lines: "Beneath their own blue sea. The ocean solitudes are blest, For there is purity."
- "Seashore" by Ralph Waldo Emerson
This poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson include the lines: "Behold the Sea, The opaline, the plentiful and strong, Yet beautiful as is the rose in June,"
- "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Coleridge's famous poem contains the lines: "Water, water, everywhere, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink."
- "By the Sea" by Emily Dickinson
Dickinson's sea poem includes the lines:"The mermaids in the basement
Came out to look at me
And frigates in the upper floor
Extended hempen hands"
- "The Shark" by Lord Alfred Douglas
Douglas's shark poem begins: "A treacherous monster is the Shark He never makes the least remark."
- "A Jelly-Fish" by Marianne Moore
Moore's poem about a jellyfish begins:"Visible, invisible,
A fluctuating charm,
An amber-colored amethyst
Inhabits it; your arm"
- "The Fisher's Boy" by Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau's poem contains the lines: "The middle sea contains no crimson dulse, Its deeper waves cast up no pearls to view;"
