“A Life on the Ocean Wave”
Lena knew many new songs and Laura learned them quickly. Together, while the milk streamed into the bright tin pails, they sang: ‘A life on the ocean wave…’. — By the Shores of Silver Lake, Chapter 10, “The Wonderful Afternoon”
Apparently Cousin Lena turned a serious, yet rollicking song into a bit of frivolity with her lyrics. In the existing manuscript for By the Shores of Silver Lake, another nonsense song was also written as sung by Laura and Lena while milking. It was “The Belle of the Ball,” with the lyrics: “One eye it looked up at the ceiling, the other looked down at the floor. Oh you’ve got the belle of the ball, Charles; You’ve got the belle of the ball!”
“A Life on the Ocean Wave” was a poem written by Epes Sargent (1813-1880). Sargent was born and lived much of his life in Gloucester, Massachusetts, as a journalist, poet, educator, and Spiritualist. In 1847, he published Songs of the Sea, a book of poems which contained “A Life on the Ocean Wave.” Sargent’s wife, Elizabeth Weld, was from Roxbury, Massachusetts, birthplace of Caroline Ingalls’ mother, Charlotte Tucker.
“A Life on the Ocean Wave” was published in 1847, having been conceived while Epes Sargent was walking on the Battery in New York. He wished it could be put to music, but was told by a friend that it wasn’t suitable. When Sargent showed the words to Henry Russell, he dashed to the piano and almost immediately put the words to music, and the song became popular in both England and America. Composer John Hill Hewitt wrote in 1877 that many parodies of “A Life on the Ocean Wave” were being sung, perhaps even Lena’s version! Henry Russell (1812-1900) spent most of his life in London but for a time he served as organist of the Presbyterian Church in Rochester, New York. Russell composed over 800 songs, among them “Cheer Boys, Cheer,” which Laura Ingalls Wilder included in the manuscript for The Long Winter, although it did not appear in the published version.
by Epes Sargent
A life on the ocean wave,
A home on the rolling deep,
Where the scattered waters rave,
And the winds their revels keep;
Like an eagle caged, I pine
On this dull, unchanging shore:
Oh! give me the flashing brine,
The spray and the tempest’s roar!
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 through the sparkling foam
Like an ocean bird set free-
Like the ocean bird, our home
We’ll find far out on sea.
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 home on the rolling sea!
A life on the ocean wave!
(from By the Shores of Silver Lake)
A life on the ocean wave,
A home on the rolling deep,
The pollywogs wag their tails
And the tears roll down their cheeks.
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Click on the above images to view a copy of original sheet music of “A Life on the Ocean Wave.”
“A Life on the Ocean Wave” (SSL 10)
“A life on the ocean wave…”