In the Past
There lies a somnolent lake
Under a noiseless sky,
Where never the mornings break
Nor the evenings die.
Mad flakes of colour
Whirl on its even face
Iridescent and streaked with pallour;
And, warding the silent place,
The rocks rise sheer and gray
From the sedgeless brink to the sky
Dull-lit with the light of pale half-day
Thro' a void space and dry.
And the hours lag dead in the air
With a sense of coming eternity
To the heart of the lonely boatman there:
That boatman am I,
I, in my lonely boat,
A waif on the somnolent lake,
Watching the colours creep and float
With the sinuous track of a snake.
Now I lean o'er the side
And lazy shades in the water see,
Lapped in the sweep of a sluggish tide
Crawled in from the living sea;
And next I fix mine eyes,
So long that the heart declines,
On the changeless face of the open skies
Where no star shines;
And now to the rocks I turn,
To the rocks, around
That lie like walls of a circling urn
Wherein lie bound
The waters that feel my powerless strength
And meet my homeless oar
Labouring over their ashen length
Never to find a shore.
But the gleam still skims
At times on the somnolent lake,
And a light there is that swims
With the whirl of a snake;
And tho' dead be the hours i' the air,
And dayless the sky,
The heart is alive of the boatman there:
That boatman am I.