The Foolish Old Sailor Who Settled Inland

To-morrow I'll up, at red of morning,
Shoulder my traps, and leave behind
Everything here that I cannot carry,
And when I am gone, no one will mind.

No one will grieve for my house deserted,
I least of all, that am hearing now
The gulls calling on starry journeys
Seaward, seaward — I care not how!

Or where, in the end, I'd come to water,
The sounding shingle, the breathing sea;
Only I tell myself, over and over,
This little house is no use to me.

This little house is no use whatever —
And I that should still have fast in my hand
Forty guineas in gold and silver —
Forty! lost on a house inland.

And none comes buying, and I thinking
Night and noon on the blowing spray;
Let the first stranger I meet on the high road
To-morrow morning give what he may.

I'll wait no longer: I hear the ship-bells
Sounding in dreams, and I see the sand,
The barnacled wherries, the cockle-baskets —
I'll wait no longer in this house inland.

But at red in morning I'll up, and shoulder
Everything easy from cupboard and shelf,
And maybe I'll meet with a man on the hill-crest
That would be glad of a house himself.

Aye, the wild peony blooms in the woodland,
Sweet pears hang on my garden wall —
If somebody'd pluck them, let him. I leave them
To any that wants them at all, at all.