Classic Poem

A Bit of Turner Put into Words

An old, old house by the side of the sea,
And never a picture poet would paint;
But I hold the woman above the saint,
And the light of the hearth is more to me
Than shimmer of air-built castle.

It fits as it grew to the landscape there —
One hardly feels as he stands aloof
Where the sandstone ends, and the red slate roof
Juts over the window, low and square,
That looks on the wild sea-water.

From the top of the hill so green and high
There slopeth a level of golden moss,
That bars of scarlet and amber cross,
And rolling out to the further sky
Is the world of wild sea-water.

Some starved grape-vineyards round about —
A zigzag road cut deep with ruts —
A little cluster of fishers' huts,
And the black sand scalloping in and out
'Twixt th' land and th' wild sea-water.

Gray fragments of some border towers,
Flat, pellmell on a circling mound,
With a furrow deeply worn all round
By the feet of children through the flowers,
And all by the wild sea-water.

And there, from the silvery break o' th' day
Till the evening purple drops to the land,
She sits with her cheek like a rose in her hand,
And her sad and wistful eyes one way —
The way of the wild sea-water.

And there, from night till the yellowing morn
Falls over the huts and th' scallops of sand —
A tangle of curls like a torch in her hand —
She sits and maketh her moan so lorn,
With the moan of the wild sea-water.

Only a study for homely eyes,
And never a picture poet would paint;
But I hold the woman above the saint,
And the light of the humblest hearth I prize
O'er the luminous air-built castle.