Exiled (Edna St. Vincent Millay)

It doesn't really fit my mood, but I can tell a good poem when I find it, so today's selection is Exiled (pdf) by Edna St. Vincent Millay.

I don't believe N is literally exiled. Life and its turns keep N from home, the places she finds familiar, that's all. I don't miss the sea as N does in this poem, but I have known enough people who had longed for the shores of their youth to know that Millay nails it.

Perhaps N's day was rough, nothing pleasant at all happened. She craved comfort, something familiar and true that she did not have to work at or think over. She was low and wanted the sea - her home - her childhood.

Favorite line: "Wanting the loud sound and the soft sound/Of the big surf that breaks all day."