Page:Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson, Hitherto unpublished, 1921.djvu/68

 Some think of the fisher skipper

Beyond the Inchcape stone;

But I of the fisher woman

That lies at home alone.

She raises herself on her elbow

And watches the firelit floor;

Her eyes are bright with terror,

Her heart beats fast and sore.

Between the roar of the flurries,

When the tempest holds its breath,

She holds her breathing also—

It is all as still as death.

She can hear the cinders dropping,

The cat that purrs in its sleep—

The foolish fisher woman!

Her heart is on the deep. [ 60 ]