Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


LESS THAN KIN by ISABEL FISKE CONANT

First Line: HE WAS A HILL MAN
Last Line: HILL-MAN . . . SEA-WOMAN.

He was a hill man,
And she watched the spray
Until he came and won her
All in a day.

Sea-folk will talk all day,
But mountain-folk are still
And the tide dashes vainly
Against a cliff's will.

He knows not how to answer
Her salt tide of talk.
He goes no further from his hills
Than a day's walk!

Though she climb to roof or hill-top
As if her soul to save,
All that her eastward staring sees
Is a hill-wave.

Hill-folk cannot easily
Speak what they feel,
But his look follows her
Like a dog at heel.

Far up a hillside
Seas cannot climb . . .
Her tide of talk is going out
Before its time.

Destiny that mated them
Was less than kind or human;
All in a day to tether
Hill-man . . . sea-woman.



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