I sat on a rock a-fishing
Where flashes the bronze-black fin
And the eddies swirl and suck and curl
When the river tide comes in.
She hailed me from the headland
And I saw the brown sail swing
Till the rope ran tight and it lifted light
As the sweep of a wild duck's wing.
'O where go ye a-sailing,
For the day will soon be done,
And see the shroud of shifting cloud
That's following up the sun?'
'It's off I am to the eastward,
To the rim of the world away,
Ply sail and oar for the far-off shore
And none shall bid me stay.'
So she sailed away to the eastward
To the far horizon's rim,
Where rosy kissed through a veil of mist
The line of the shore lay dim.
And the sun sank down the marshes,
In a field of flame he rolled,
The heaving track from the boat slipped back
Like a path of molten gold.
Each little wave seemed smiling,
Lips curled in a rosy bow,
Like a babe asleep on the breast of the deep
That rocked it to and fro.
And I sat on my rock a-fishing
While further down the west
The sun sank slow to his bed below
In the marshes' swaying breast.
Sudden a white owl hooted
From his nest in the pine hard by,
And a whip-poor-will sent an answer shrill
From the depths of the flaming sky.
I looked away to the westward
And there I saw it stand,
A cloud pure white and small and bright
As the palm of an opened hand.
One leap to the jutting headland,–
Like a blow it stung my face,
The cap of wind with the threat behind
Of the squall that comes apace.
Out on the lake there widened
A wreathing ring of black,
And the spreading cloud like an out-flung shroud
Promised the coming wrack.
The waves rose white and frothing,
With a hiss like a rattlesnake
That glides at night past the lantern's light
On the path through a slimy brake.
Have you seen the inland waters
When the black squall rides the wave?
For it comes like light and there is no flight,
And you call on God to save,
As I, one breath, 'Save, save her!'
And I plunged in the driving roar,
For my light canoe pierced through and through
Lay high on the rocky shore.
Clean stroke, long breath, poised body,
They laugh at your manhood's pride,
The billows that seethe and drive in your teeth
When the breath cramps in your side.
A quarter-mile to the headland?
Ten miles of boiling hell!
Blind, choked and stung, bruised, tossed and flung
In a world that heaved and fell.
But once, from the crest of a comber
The gleam of a distant sail,
As slight a thing as a butterfly's wing
Tossed into the teeth of the gale.
On, on ! Is your blood turned water ?
Shall a straining muscle's pain,
Though it snap like tow, speak louder now
Than the cry of heart and brain?
In my ears the roar of thunder,
In my eyes a spray blood-red,
But once I sank, lost wind and drank,
And something snapped in my head.
Do you know the way of the waters
When their sudden wrath is o'er?
Rubbish and wrack they cast safe back,
And they cast me on the shore.
Do you know the way of the waters,
The hungry, restless wave?
They take for toll a living soul
And no man knows the grave.
Then search no more by the marshes
Where the moon stands up so white,
Has never a bird through the silence stirred
All the long, bright summer night.
Then seek no more by the river
Where the water lilies gleam,
So pale and still, so ghostly chill
Like a dead face in a dream,
For the eyes may ache with seeking,
They may search till they see no more,
And the heart grow old and the pulse beat cold
Ere my love comes back to shore.
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