I learned this poem years ago, in junior high.  My class has to each learn a poem to recite, and was the one I selected.  Every once in a while, I think of it again, as I've never forgotten in.  Something about it touches me.  Perhaps it is the fact that I grew up inland, yet I always longed to see the see.  Vacationing in Maine the times that we have done it was magical.  The sound of the waves, the scent of the air.  I could sit and stare at the ocean for hours.  

Kansas Boy
By Ruth Lechlitner

This Kansas boy who never saw the sea
Walks through the young corn rippling at his knee
As sailors walk; and when the grain grows higher
Watches the dark waves leap with greener fire
Than ever oceans hold. He follows ships,
Tasting the bitter spray upon his lips,
For in his blood up stirs the salty ghost
Of one who sailed a storm-bound English coast.
Across wide fields he hears the sea winds crying,
Shouts at the crows - and dreams of white gulls flying.