In the poem, the speaker describes how, as a boy, he watched a pair of mocking-birds nesting,[2] until one day the she-bird flew away and never returned.
In a long section usually printed in italics, the he-bird, unable to leave in case his mate should return and find him gone, waits forever and calls his sorrowful song to the moon, the stars and the sea, which are heavy and drooping with his lost love.
The poem however continues to explain how the boy's feelings suddenly burst out tumultuously, and he ran weeping down to the sea in the moonlight as the bird's call unlocked the questions in his own heart.
The chorus opens (the beginning of the poem, 'Out of the cradle...' is omitted) at 'Once Paumanok, when the lilac-scent was in the air...', two sections weaving the words to suggest the two birds.
', repeated by the chorus as the climax, and then the long coda, mainly sung by the baritone ('O I am very sick and sorrowful'), lamenting the loss of their life together ('We two together no more'), and the words 'no more', echoed like the murmuring sea and wind by the choir, bring the work to a close.
It was dedicated to the composer and conductor Max von Schillings (then plain "Max Schillings"), and (at a time when Delius found it very difficult to obtain performances of his works in Britain) the first performance was given on 24 May 1906 at the Essen Tonkünstler Verein (Composers' Society) in Germany, with Joseph Loritz as soloist and Georg Witte conducting.
Nevertheless, Delius's Sea Drift aroused tremendous enthusiasm, the audience making up in applause what they lacked in numbers.
[14] Lastly came a rendition with Bruce Boyce (and the same orchestra and choir) recorded in 1954 and widely released by CBS Masterworks and Philips Classics.
[15] A 1963 broadcast performance (in German) conducted by Carl Schuricht, with soloist Carlos Alexander and the Bavarian Radio Orchestra,[16] preserves the reading of one of the earliest conductors of the work, who knew Delius and altered some details of his orchestration.
[17] Later recordings include Sir Charles Groves conducting the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra & Choir with John Noble (paired with A Song of the High Hills on Angel Records in 1974),[18] and Richard Hickox leading the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra with the London Symphony Chorus and John Shirley-Quirk (a 1981 pairing with Appalachia on Argo).