| Sunlit waters, slowly drifting;
Drooping
willows, shadows shifting
On
the surface of the stream,
And,
far below, a sudden gleam
Of
halcyon skies, caught in a net
Of
twisted weeds. Round pebbles wet
Wink
palely in the shafted light.
A
sailing leaf, in fearful flight,
Darts
swiftly down the current black
-
While close behind it tangled wrack
And
floating flotsam, like a ridge
Of
oil clad debris, hits the bridge
And
fretting, jerking, comes to pause
Held
by the stanchion's wooden jaws.
A
wheeling whirring dragonfly
Swooping
downward from on high
Is
trapped in the water's green silk thread;
His
long wings, frantic, flattening, shed
Crystalline
dimples far and wide.
Vainly
he tries to fight the tide.
A
daisy, like a sailor elf,
Goes
journeying gaily by itself;
Past
the bridge and away beyond
To
reach, at last, some distant pond.
Beside
the bank are chunky rocks
Where
nettles grow and broad leafed docks;
A
circling pool of darkening deep
Where
water beetles crawl and creep,
Spiders
scuttle and minnows swim,
And
the leaf-like leech is hid in the dim
Silent
recesses of the clay,
Where
the gurgling eddies die away
Awed
by the stillness, green and brown.
Turning
and twisting, hurrying down
The
bend, a rounded rusted can
Shaped
like a lantern from Japan,
Half
submerged and half afloat,
Comes
bobbing, like a ferry boat
Of
strange design - a goblin craft
Straining
onward, as if it chafed
At
the hidden hands of an elfin crew.
It
passes so, and is lost to view...... |