Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface and Acknowledgements
- No Wings
- Preface to Second Edition
- Foreword to Second Edition
- Introduction to Second Edition
- A Note of History
- Should I Ever…
- THE COUNTRYSIDE
- AKAN
- EWE
- GA-ADANGME
- DAGOMBA
- HAUSA
- THE TOWN
- Tumble-Down Woods
- Tough Guy in Town
- In the Streets of Accra
- Snuff and the Ashes
- Radio Dance Hour
- This is Experience Speaking
- Palm Leaves of Childhood
- Hot Day
- The Literary Society
- It's Ritual Murder
- The Wrong Packing Case
- Lines on Korle Bu
- Pay Day
- The Walk of Life (Agbezoli)
- Peace
- Heaven is a Fine Place
- Ata
- Complaint
- To My Mother
- Oh! My Brother
- The Homeless Boy
- The Lone Horse
- The Perfect Understander
- The Woods Decay
- On Parting
- To the Night Insects
- The Blind Man from the North
- A Second Birthday
- In God's Tired Face
- The Executioner's Dream
- Had I Known
- Re-incarnation
- Ancestral Faces
- ‘O Forest, Dear Forest’
- My Sea Adventure
- The Passing of The King
- Patriotism
- African Heaven
- The Ghosts
- The Herdsman from Wa
- Pa Grant Due
- The Mosquito and the Young Ghanaian
- Unity in Diversity
- The Journey to Independence
- Ode to the Hon. Dr. Kwame Nkrumah
- The Dawn of the New Era
- The Meaning of Independence
- National Anthem
- The Contributors
- Index
My Sea Adventure
from THE TOWN
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 August 2019
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface and Acknowledgements
- No Wings
- Preface to Second Edition
- Foreword to Second Edition
- Introduction to Second Edition
- A Note of History
- Should I Ever…
- THE COUNTRYSIDE
- AKAN
- EWE
- GA-ADANGME
- DAGOMBA
- HAUSA
- THE TOWN
- Tumble-Down Woods
- Tough Guy in Town
- In the Streets of Accra
- Snuff and the Ashes
- Radio Dance Hour
- This is Experience Speaking
- Palm Leaves of Childhood
- Hot Day
- The Literary Society
- It's Ritual Murder
- The Wrong Packing Case
- Lines on Korle Bu
- Pay Day
- The Walk of Life (Agbezoli)
- Peace
- Heaven is a Fine Place
- Ata
- Complaint
- To My Mother
- Oh! My Brother
- The Homeless Boy
- The Lone Horse
- The Perfect Understander
- The Woods Decay
- On Parting
- To the Night Insects
- The Blind Man from the North
- A Second Birthday
- In God's Tired Face
- The Executioner's Dream
- Had I Known
- Re-incarnation
- Ancestral Faces
- ‘O Forest, Dear Forest’
- My Sea Adventure
- The Passing of The King
- Patriotism
- African Heaven
- The Ghosts
- The Herdsman from Wa
- Pa Grant Due
- The Mosquito and the Young Ghanaian
- Unity in Diversity
- The Journey to Independence
- Ode to the Hon. Dr. Kwame Nkrumah
- The Dawn of the New Era
- The Meaning of Independence
- National Anthem
- The Contributors
- Index
Summary
O Mighty Sea! O Mighty Sea!
I awoke one broad day
I was tossing at the south-west,
The sun being at its highest;
I descended to the sea
In formidable cliffs.
O Mighty Sea! O Mighty Sea!
The peak of adventure hill was at
My elbow; bounded with cliffs
Fifty to seventy feet high,
And fringed with great
Masses of fallen rock—
Loud reverberations, heavy spray
Flying and falling, followed one
Another from minute to minute,
That attempted to discourage my adventure;
My undaunted courage ne'er yielded—
O Mighty Sea! O Mighty Sea!
I ventured my sea adventure,
I beheld huge slimy monsters,
Soft snails of incredible bigness;
Copious, massing across
The bed of the mighty sea;
My vessel still forged ahead.
O Mighty Sea! O Mighty Sea!
I realised such creatures, your babies,
O mighty sea, your babies are harmless,
Your babies are formidable—
Your babies are rare to find;
They make up a great sea-bed-city.
O Mighty Sea! O Mighty Sea!
Starving at sea, still I preferred confronting perils,
The wind blowing steady and gentle ashore,
The billows rising and falling unbroken;
I was undaunted, I should ever succeed
In my adventure; O mighty sea!
O Mighty Sea! The weather was temperate,
I ventured advance;
The night drew nigh, O sea!
I forged ahead across your mighty surface,
There was a full moon;
O Mighty Sea, I advanced to success.
O Mighty Sea! O Mighty Sea!
There was a strange and huge
Creature ahead of me; that
Was the whale, the king of the sea,
And massing around it, were the
Young babies of the mighty sea.
O Mighty Sea! O Mighty Sea!
Long laborious miles I
Had still to accomplish;
Your babies ever happy to welcome me,
Lo! The sea-bed-city of marvels,
All of beauty, all of use, a planet could produce.
O Mighty Sea! O Mighty Sea!
There was a great city under the sea;
Polar marvels, and a feast
Of wonder, and shapes and hues
Of nature's arts prevailed;
O Mighty Sea! The city of peace.
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- Information
- Voices of GhanaLiterary Contributions to the Ghana Broadcasting System 1955–57, pp. 225 - 228Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2018