The Daily Dispatch

Katrina on the Porch,
An old, old house by the side of the sea.
[From the "Galaxy" for December.]
BY ALICE CARY.

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-
Just over the window, low and square.
Where the sandstone ends, and the red slate roof
That looks on the wild sea-water.

From the top of the hill so green and high
There slopeth a level of golden moss.
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.
Gray fragments of some border towers,
'Twixt th' land and th' wild sea-water.

By the feet of children through the flowers,
pell-mell
With a furrow deeply worn all round
And all by the wild sea-water.

And there, from the silvery break o' th' day
She sits with her cheek like the rose in her hand.
A tangle of curls like a torch in her hand-
And her sad and wistful eyes one way-
The way of the wild sea-water,

Till the evening purple drops to the land,
Falls over the huts and th' scallops of sand -
And there, from night till the yellowing morn
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:
And the light of the humble at hearth I prize
But I hold the woman above the saint,
O'er the luminous air-built-castle.