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  • Little Sea House
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Little Sea House

Hamish Maclaren

Little sea house,
when I found you,
the yellow poppies
were nodding round you.

Your blue slate hat
that the four winds
came to tug at
over the tamarinds:

I remember it well:
the salmon-nets drying –
laugh, violin-shell,
and cease crying!

For I will return,
through the sea-haze:
I am sailing back there
always, always.


Hamish Maclaren

from Sailor with Banjo (Victor Gollancz, 1929)

Reproduced by kind permission of the estate of Hamish Maclaren.

Tags:

exile home longing memory National Poetry Day 2010 poems on postcards

About this poem

Little Sea House National Poetry Day 2010 postcard

This poem was reproduced on a postcard for National Poetry Day 2010. Eight poetry postcards are published each year by the Scottish Poetry Library to celebrate National Poetry Day and are distributed throughout Scotland to schools, libraries and other venues. The theme for 2010 was home. You can find out more about National Poetry Day in our National Poetry Day pages, where you'll also find resources to go with the poems.

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Hamish Maclaren1901 - 1987

Hamish Maclaren’s poetry was coloured by his eventful early life in the Royal Navy and as a merchant seaman; his ‘sea lyrics’ are energetic shanties, and the lure of the sea is reflected in many of his quieter poems.
More about Hamish Maclaren

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