Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, KATRINA ON THE PORCH; A BIT OF TURNER PUT INTO WORDS, by ALICE CARY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

KATRINA ON THE PORCH; A BIT OF TURNER PUT INTO WORDS, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: An old, old house by the side of the sea
Last Line: O'er the luminous air-built castle.
Subject(s): Paintings & Painters; Turner, Joseph Mallord W. (1775-1851)


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 farther 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 fisher's 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.





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