Photo is of the Isleford Historical Museum on Little Cranberry Island

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 neighbors of this and that
And close your fire keep,
But you’ll hear ship whistle and lighthouse bell
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!

Rachel Field
Sept 7, 1929
Sutton Island, Maine

Poem written for William Otis Sawtellle,
Founder of the Isleford Historical Museum on Little Cranberry Island