There is no pain as unbearable as leaving a place that filled your life with happiness and knowing you’re never going back. This is what lyricists who lived by the sea, like Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, experienced and expressed through poetry every time they had to part with their beloved mistress. Longfellow’s poem “The Secret of the Sea” shows us that a powerful representation of nostalgia is a ship’s longing to set sail.
Longfellow was born and bred in Portland, Maine, in a time when it was the second most important seaport in New England. Enchanting images of ships and roaring sea are scattered throughout all his poems. He spent his life admiring islands far away and the dazzling horizons. Every time he was away from the sea, he missed its blue waters and sparkling bays. In his poetry, the waves are like life itself, they wax and wane, reflecting the never ending cycles we live in.
There is always a point in life when we are forced to leave a place we consider our home and is very special to us, and it is inevitable to feel like a sailor losing part of their essence. We sink in a sea of memories and we would do anything to take with us a little piece of that place, but sometimes that is impossible. What do sailors do when they refuse to abandon their origins? Get a tattoo of the ship that accompanied them in their journey across the seven seas!
A ship is not just a symbol of longing for sailors. All of us can connect with the feeling of having to leave our land, origins, or memories behind to embark on a new journey. We can only hope to find turquoise waters and a better destination. That’s why it is no surprise that a ship has become a popular motif. To travel by land will never compare to the feeling of freedom you can experience sailing over tranquil or untamed waters. Everything is unknown. There is always a new horizon to explore.
A tattoo isn’t just an identity mark or a simple memory that filled our hearts with joy for a passing moment. It is also a symbol of opposition and defiance; it screams to the world that nobody, not even the god of the seas himself, will never make you relinquish your greatest passion, no matter where you are.
Without a doubt, poetry can soothe the soul, but an engraving on your skin allows you to take the best memories with you and keep them very close to you. Whenever you feel lost or like quitting your odyssey, your ship will remind you why you started this journey, your purpose, and why you can’t give up. After all, if life and the sea have something in common is that they are fierce, ever changing, and fast moving.
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Sources:
La voz del muro
Mundo latino
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Translated by Andrea Valle
