Procter, Bryan Waller

Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)

Bryan Waller (1787-1874), an English poet who used the pen name of Barry Cornwall . He was born at Leeds. He was educated at Harrow and later studied law in London. He wrote dramas, songs, and several prose works. Mirandola, a tragedy, was performed successfully in 1821. His prose works include Portraits of the British Poets, Life of Edmund Kean, and Memoir of Charles Lamb. He is best known, however, for his English Songs, a volume containing 172 short poems. These have been highly praised by Mr. Stoddard and by Edmund Clarence Stedman. Probably there is no one of the English Songs more widely known than that entitled The Sea, which Mr. Stedman mentions as "fresh with the sprayey breeze of ocean, and echoing the innumerous laughter of waves that tumble round the singer's isle." 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: Or like a cradled creature lies. . . . I never was on the dull, tame shore, But I loved the great sea more and more, 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 waves were white, and red the morn, 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! 2026 Editor's Note: William Jennings Bryan — three-time loser of the presidency, the 'Cross of Gold' voice of this entry's era — met his strange last act at the Scopes trial (1925), prosecuting evolution and dying days after. See Bryan . (Ed: BR 2026-06-02)