[317] Inland

Back after a while...

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

As long-time readers of the list are doubtless aware, I love sea poems and
I love Millay, and this poem has disappointed neither set of expectations.
The sea is, in some ways, the perfect embodiment of Nature -- boundless,
untameable, "his Sea in no showing the same, his Sea and the same 'neath
each showing" -- in short, the very antithesis of civilization and its
"little boxes all the same". And Millay has captured this conflict
beautifully, with a poem that traverses a spectrum of moods, starting off
quietly and ending with a rising scream and a slap in the face.

As with many sea poems this progression of moods is very likely intended to
mirror the ever changing nature of the sea itself. This particular poem also
reminds me of a breaking wave - the long, slow buildup, followed by the
sudden rise and crash against an unyielding shore. And beneath the wave, the
gentle undercurrent of ripples suggested by the repeated words and phrases.
(Of course, it is all too easy to read more meanings and analogies into a
poem than its author ever intended, but such resonances only enhance the
experience; in the final anaylsis most poems are the joint creation of the
poet and the reader.)

m.

Links:

We've run a number of Millay poems in the past, all available at
http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/index_poet.html

There's a Millay biography and some further links at poem #34