Inland

        People that build their houses inland,
            People that buy a plot of ground
        Shaped like a house, and build a house there,
            Far from the sea-board, far from the sound

        Of water sucking the hollow ledges,
            Tons of water striking the shore,--
        What do they long for, as I long for
            One salt smell of the sea once more?

        People the waves have not awakened,
            Spanking the boats at the harbor's head,
        What do they long for, as I long for,--
            Starting up in my inland bed,

        Beating the narrow walls, and finding
            Neither a window nor a door,
        Screaming to God for death by drowning,--
            One salt taste of the sea once more?

Edna St. Vincent Millay

No biography available

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Dirge

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Simple Poetry

Elegy

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Simple Poetry

Ashes Of Life

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Simple Poetry

Alms

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Exiled

        Searching my heart for its true sorrow,
            This is the thing I find 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 ...

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Low-Tide

        These wet rocks where the tide has been,
            Barnacled white and weeded brown
        And slimed beneath to a beautiful green,
            These wet rocks where the tide went down
        Will show again when the tide is high
            Faint and perilous, far from shore,
        No place to dream, but a place to die,--
            The bottom of the sea once more.
        There was a child that wandered through
            A giant's empty house all day,--
        House full of wonderful things and new,
            But no fit place for a child to play.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Eel-Grass

        No matter what I say,
            All that I really love
        Is the rain that flattens on the bay,
            And the eel-grass in the cove;
        The jingle-shells that lie and bleach
            At the tide-line, and the trace
        Of higher tides along the beach:
            Nothing in this place.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

By the Sea.

I am longing to dwell by the sea,
    And dip in the surf every day,
And - height of subaqueous glee -
    With the sharks and the porpoises play.

To novelty ever inclined -
    Instead of a calm evening sail,
'Twould suit my adventurous mind
    To ride on the back of a whale.

I want to disport on the rocks
    Like a mythical mermaiden belle,
And comb out my watery locks,
    Then dive to my cavernous cell.

I want to discover what lends
    Such terror to all timid folks -
That serpent whose mystery tends
    To make one believe it a hoax.

They say he's been captured at last;
    The news is too good to be true -
He's slippery, cunning, and fast,
    And likes notoriety too.

Once had I such longings to be

Hattie Howard

Burial

        Mine is a body that should die at sea!
            And have for a grave, instead of a grave
        Six feet deep and the length of me,
            All the water that is under the wave!

        And terrible fishes to seize my flesh,
            Such as a living man might fear,
        And eat me while I am firm and fresh,--
            Not wait till I've been dead for a year!

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Sea Longing

A thousand miles beyond this sun-steeped wall
Somewhere the waves creep cool along the sand,
The ebbing tide forsakes the listless land
With the old murmur, long and musical;
The windy waves mount up and curve and fall,
And round the rocks the foam blows up like snow,
Tho' I am inland far, I hear and know,
For I was born the sea's eternal thrall.
I would that I were there and over me
The cold insistence of the tide would roll,
Quenching this burning thing men call the soul,
Then with the ebbing I should drift and be
Less than the smallest shell along the shoal,
Less than the sea-gulls calling to the sea.

Sara Teasdale