There lies a somnolent lake <br />Under a noiseless sky, <br />Where never the mornings break <br />Nor the evenings die. <br /> <br />Mad flakes of colour <br />Whirl on its even face <br />Iridescent and streaked with pallour; <br />And, warding the silent place, <br /> <br />The rocks rise sheer and gray <br />From the sedgeless brink to the sky <br />Dull-lit with the light of pale half-day <br />Thro' a void space and dry. <br /> <br />And the hours lag dead in the air <br />With a sense of coming eternity <br />To the heart of the lonely boatman there: <br />That boatman am I, <br /> <br />I, in my lonely boat, <br />A waif on the somnolent lake, <br />Watching the colours creep and float <br />With the sinuous track of a snake. <br /> <br />Now I lean o'er the side <br />And lazy shades in the water see, <br />Lapped in the sweep of a sluggish tide <br />Crawled in from the living sea; <br /> <br />And next I fix mine eyes, <br />So long that the heart declines, <br />On the changeless face of the open skies <br />Where no star shines; <br /> <br />And now to the rocks I turn, <br />To the rocks, around <br />That lie like walls of a circling sun <br />Wherein lie bound <br /> <br />The waters that feel my powerless strength <br />And meet my homeless oar <br />Labouring over their ashen length <br />Never to find a shore. <br /> <br />But the gleam still skims <br />At times on the somnolent lake, <br />And a light there is that swims <br />With the whirl of a snake; <br /> <br />And tho' dead be the hours i' the air, <br />And dayless the sky, <br />The heart is alive of the boatman there: <br />That boatman am I.<br /><br />Trumbull Stickney<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/in-the-past-5/
