Page:Veil other poems .djvu/17



WILIGHT leaned mirrored in a pool Where willow boughs swept green and hoar, Silk-clear the water, calm and cool, Silent the weedy shore:

There in abstracted, brooding mood One fishing sate. His painted float Motionless as a planet stood; Motionless his boat.

A melancholy soul was this, With lantern jaw, gnarled hand, vague eye; Huddled in pensive solitariness He had fished existence by.

Empty his creel; stolen his bait— Impassively he angled on, Though mist now showed the evening late And daylight well-nigh gone.

Suddenly, like a tongueless bell. Downward his gaudy cork did glide; A deep, low-gathering, gentle swell Spread slowly far and wide.