Home is where the heart is, and my heart is on the sea. Ashore I feel a wanderer wherever I may be, But on a ship bound any place from Capetown north to Nome I feel a sense of coziness that tells me I'm at home. It isn't that I love the sea, although I guess I do, But rather that a sailor's life is what I'm fitted to. I'm habited to deep-sea ways, to salt upon my lips, To tarry ropes and galley grub and sailor men and ships. Though by and large the landsmen seem a pretty decent lot, The things they care the most about are things that I do not, And as for Women—bad or good—perhaps the landsmen know But always they're a puzzle and I'll always find them so. I never knew my mother, she was gone before I'd grown So the sea's the only mother that I happen to have known. She's not been very tender and she's not been very kind But she's made the only home for me that ever I could find. So storm and fog and sleet and ice and being calmed or wrecked I take as family troubles that a sailor must expect, And, like a decent family man, I very seldom grouse About domestic worries that occur around the house. At times the thought of settling down has flittered through my dome, But when I pick a place ashore I cannot feel at home. The sea's a kind of habit that has got ahold of me; Home is where the heart is and my heart is on the sea! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TO MR. THOMAS SOUTHERNE, ON HIS BIRTHDAY, 1742 by ALEXANDER POPE THE TROOP SHIP by ISAAC ROSENBERG ROBERT BURNS by WILLIAM ALEXANDER (1567-1640) MARE AMORIS by GAMALIEL BRADFORD FEMININE by HENRY CUYLER BUNNER A BALADE OF COMPLAINT by GEOFFREY CHAUCER |