The Fishers Boy by Henry David Thoreau, Red for LibraVox.org by Alan Davis Drake. My life is like a stroll upon the beach. As near the ocean's edges I can go. My tardy steps its waves sometimes or reach.
Sometimes I stay to let them overflow. My soul-employment is, and scrupulous care, to place my gains beyond the reach of tides. Each smoother pebble and each shell more rare, which ocean kindly to my hand confides. I have but few companions on the shore.
They scorn the strand who sail upon the sea. Yet off I think the ocean they've sailed or is deeper known upon the strand to me. The middle sea contains no crimson dulse. Its deeper waves cast up no pearls to view.
Along the shore my hand is on its pulse, and I converse with many a shipwrecked crew. In the poem this recording is, In The Public Domain.