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 hour i' the air, And dayless the sky, The heart is alive of the boatman there: That boatman am I. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE BUSY HEART by RUPERT BROOKE VALENTINES TO MY MOTHER: 1882 by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI THE VIRGINIANS OF THE VALLEY by FRANCIS ORRERY TICKNOR MY HAPPINESS by JOHANNA AMBROSIUS GROWING OLD by KARLE WILSON BAKER WHO KNOWS WHERE BEAUTY LIES? by AGNES STEWART BECK THE SHADOW by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN BIARTEY'S SPINNING SONG, FR. THE RIDING TO LITHEND by GORDON BOTTOMLEY |