Poem of the Week: "The Island," by A.A. Milne

During the dregs of winter, I really begin to miss the ocean. When I was growing up, my father's extended family would rent a house on the beach for one week every July in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. Most of my fondest memories come from those vacations, when my cousins and I would run wild on the beaches, eating ice cream and watching dolphins follow the shrimp boats in the early morning. To this day, I am still ridiculously nostalgic when it comes to the ocean. So today, I'm posting a happy little children's poem by A.A. Milne (he of Winnie-the-Pooh fame) about this subject.

The Island, by A.A. Milne

If I had a ship,
I'd sail my ship
I'd sail my ship
Through Eastern seas;
Down to a beach where the slow waves thunder -
The green curls over and the white falls under -
Boom! Boom! Boom!
On the sun-bright sand.
Then I'd leave my ship and I'd land,
And climb the steep white sand,
And climb to the trees
The six dark trees,
The coco-nut trees on the cliff's green crown -
Hands and knees
To the coco-nut trees,
Face to the cliff as the stones patter down,
Up, up, up, staggering, stumbling,
Round the corner where the rock is crumbling,
Round this shoulder,
Over this boulder,
Up to the top where the six trees stand....

And there I would rest, and lie,
My chin in my hands, and gaze
At the dazzle of the sand below,
And the green waves curling slow
And the grey-blue distant haze
Where the sea goes up to the sky....

And I'd say to myself as I looked so lazily down at the sea:
"There's nobody else in the world, and the world was made for me."