Research by Steven L. Brawley

Poems Penned by Jackie

Me (1939)

Easter (1941)

Sailing (1943)

Sea Joy (1939)

When I go down by the sandy shore

I can think of nothing I want more

Then to live by the booming blue sea

As the seagulls flutter round about me 

I can run about - when the tide is out

With the wind and the sand and the sea all about

And the sea gulls are swirling and diving for fish

O - to live by the sea is my only wish.

Thoughts (1943)

I love the Autumn,

And yet I cannot say

All the thoughts and things

That make one feel this way.

I love walking on the angry shore,

To watch the angry sea;

Where summer people were before,

But now there’s only me.

I love wood fires at night

That have a ruddy glow.

I stare at the flames

And think of long ago. 

I love the feeling down inside me

That says to run away

To come and be a gypsy

And laugh the gypsy way.

The tangy taste of apples,

The snowy mist at morn,

The wonderlust inside you

When you hear the huntsman’s horn. 

Naustagia - that’s the Autumn,

Dreaming through September

Just a million lovely things

I always will remember.

Meanwhile in Massachusetts (1953)

Meanwhile in Massachusetts Jack Kennedy dreamed

Walking the shore by the Cape Cod Sea

Of all the things he was going to be.

He breathed in the tang of the New England fall

And back in his mind he pictured it all,

The burnished New England countryside

Names that a patriot says with pride

Concord and Lexington, Bunker Hill

Plymouth and Falmouth and Marstons Mill

Winthrop and Salem, Lowell, Revere

Quincy and Cambridge, Louisburg Square.

This was his heritage—this his share

Of dreams that a young man harks in the air.

The past reached out and tracked him now 

He would heed that touch; he didn’t know how.

Part he must serve, a part he must lead

Both were his calling, both were his need. 

Part he was of New England stock

As stubborn, close guarded as Plymouth Rock

He thought with his feet most firm on the ground

But his heart and his dreams were not earthbound

He would call new England his place and his creed

But part he was of an alien breed

Of a breed that had laughed on Irish hills

And heard the voice in Irish rills

The life of that green land danced in his blood

Tara, Killarney, a magical flood

That surged in the depth of his too proud heart

And spiked the punch of New England so tart

Men would call him thoughtful, sincere

They would not see through to the Last Cavalier 

He turned on the beach and looked toward his house. 

On a green lawn his white house stands

And the wind blows the sea grass low on the sands

There his brothers and sisters have laughed and played 

And thrown themselves to rest in the shade.

The lights glowed inside, soon supper would ring

And he would go home where his father was King.

But no he was here with the wind and the sea

And all the things he was going to be.

He would build empires 

And he would have sons

Others would fall

Where the current runs 

He would find love

He would never find peace

For he must go seeking

The Golden Fleece

All of the things he was going to be

All of the things in the wind and the sea.

Notes: Some of Jackie's favorite poems included: "Ithaka" by Constantine P. Cavafy and "Memory of Cape Cod" by Edna St. Vincent Millay. Read Caroline Kennedy's "The Best Loved Poems of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis" for further information.