Page:The Heart of England.djvu/234



tide moves the river northward, towards me, under the bridge on which I stand. On both sides it is lined for a little way by houses: on the east in a flat, straight front, on the west in irregular rocky masses. Those on the east are coldly stained with light from the western sky; those opposite are vaguely shadowed and have an airiness and gloom—not a light yet appearing—as of the other side of Lethe. The river is of noble breadth.

Against the eastern houses rise up the masses of seven fishing boats in a row, with only such movement as makes the shadow run into the brown and gold, or the gold and brown into the shadow of the sails slowly, like the unfolding of poppies: and under their sides the shadows are profound as if they trailed black velvet mantles that hid the water. For, away from the boats, the unrippled surface of the motionlessly gliding river is of that lugubrious silver that seems to be, not water, but some trick of light upon mere air, such as is seen above summer meadows in the heat.

And over all is bent a pale, soft, empurpled sky, and in it a crescent moon.

Up the river came two fishing boats, sleeping, their motion the only proof of the tide—no man visible on