Exiled

By: Edna St. Vincent Millay

Searching my heart for its true sorrow,
This is the thing I find it to be:
That I am weary of words and people,
Sick of the city, wanting the sea ;

Wanting the sticky, salty sweetness
Of the strong wind and shattered spray;
Wanting the loud sound and the soft sound
Of the big surf that breaks all day.

Always before about my dooryard ,
Marking the reach of the winter sea ,
Rooted in sand and dragging drift-wood,
Straggled the purple wild sweet-pea;

Always I climbed the wave at morning,
Shook the sand from my shoes at night,
That now am caught beneath great buildings,
Stricken with noise, confused with light.

If I could hear the green piles groaning
Under the windy wooden piers,
See once again the bobbing barrels,
And the black sticks that fence the weirs ,

If I could see the weedy mussels
Crusting the wrecked and rotting hulls ,
Hear once again the hungry crying
Overhead, of the wheeling gulls,

Under the turning of the tide,
Fear once again the rising freshet ,
Dread the bell in the fog outside,

I should be happy! -- that was happy
All day long on the coast of Maine;
I have a need to hold and handle
Shells and anchors and ships again!

I should be happy... that am happy
Never at all since I came here.
I am too long away from water.
I have a need of water near.