The Exile

It is not when the seamew cries above the grey-green foam

Or circling o'er the bracken-fields the fluttering lapwings fly,

Or when above the broom and gale the lark is in his windy home

That thus I long, and with old longing sigh.

For I am far away now, and now have time for sighing,

For sighing and for longing, where the grey houses stand.

In dreams I am a seamew flying, flying, flying

To where my heart is, in my own lost land.

It is when in the crowded streets the rustling of white willows

And tumbling of a brown hill-water obscure the noisy ways;

Then is the ache a bitter pain; and to hear grey-green billows,

Or the hill-wind in a broom-sweet place.