“If I could see the weedy mussels

  Crusting the wrecked and rotting hulls,

Hear once again the hungry crying

  Overhead, of the wheeling gulls;

Feel once again the shanty straining

  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.’’

— From “Exiled,’’ by Edna St Vincent Millay (1892-1950), a native of the Maine Coast