If Once You Have Slept on an Island (Monday Poem)

by Rachel Field


If once you have slept on an island
You'll never be quite the same;
You may look as you looked the day before
And go by the same old name,

You may bustle about in street and shop'
You may sit at home and sew,
But you'll see blue water and wheeling gulls
Wherever your feet may go.

You may chat with the neighbors of this and that
And close to your fire keep,
But you'll hear ship whistle and lighthouse belll
And tides beat through your sleep.

Oh, you won't know why, and you can't say how
Such change upon you came,
But -- once you have slept on an island
You'll never be quite the same!



from Sing a Song of Seasons
A Nature Poem for Each Day of the Year
selected by Fiona Waters
illustrated by Frann Preston-Gannon
Candlewick Press, 2018