They are the angels of that watery world, <br />With so much knowledge that they just aspire <br />To move themselves on golden fins, <br />Or fill their paradise with fire <br />By darting suddenly from end to end. <br /> <br />Glowing a thousand centuries behind <br />In pools half-recollected of the mind, <br />Their large eyes stare and stare, but do not see <br />Beyond those curtains of Eternity. <br /> <br />When twilight flows into the room <br />And air becomes like water, you can feel <br />Their movements growing larger in the gloom, <br />And you are led <br />Backward to where they live beyond the dead. <br /> <br />But in the morning, when the seven rays <br />Of London sunlight one by one incline, <br />They glide to meet them, and their gulping lips <br />Suck the light in, so they are caught and played <br />Like salmon on a heavenly fishing line. <br /> <br />* * * * <br /> <br />Ghosts on a twilight floor, <br />Moving about behind their watery door, <br />Breathing and yet not breathing day and night, <br />They give the house some gleam of faint delight.<br /><br />Harold Monro<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/goldfish-3/
