Searching my heart for its true sorrow, <br />This is the thing I find to be: <br />That I am weary of words and people, <br />Sick of the city, wanting the sea; <br /> <br />Wanting the sticky, salty sweetness <br />Of the strong wind and shattered spray; <br />Wanting the loud sound and the soft sound <br />Of the big surf that breaks all day. <br /> <br />Always before about my dooryard, <br />Marking the reach of the winter sea, <br />Rooted in sand and dragging drift-wood, <br />Straggled the purple wild sweet-pea; <br /> <br />Always I climbed the wave at morning, <br />Shook the sand from my shoes at night, <br />That now am caught beneath great buildings, <br />Stricken with noise, confused with light. <br /> <br />If I could hear the green piles groaning <br />Under the windy wooden piers, <br />See once again the bobbing barrels, <br />And the black sticks that fence the weirs, <br /> <br />If I could see the weedy mussels <br />Crusting the wrecked and rotting hulls, <br />Hear once again the hungry crying <br />Overhead, of the wheeling gulls, <br /> <br />Feel once again the shanty straining <br />Under the turning of the tide, <br />Fear once again the rising freshet, <br />Dread the bell in the fog outside,— <br /> <br />I should be happy,—that was happy <br />All day long on the coast of Maine! <br />I have a need to hold and handle <br />Shells and anchors and ships again! <br /> <br />I should be happy, that am happy <br />Never at all since I came here. <br />I am too long away from water. <br />I have a need of water near.<br /><br />Edna St. Vincent Millay<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/exiled/
