Now with stiff fingers round the heavy oars The lobster man pulls slowly past the lea, Seeing before him not his homely shores But the vast coldness of the level sea, Yet nearer draws, as if unwillingly, And so comes home. Piling his catch and gear He thinks of what his waiting meal will be, The steamy kitchen, and the fire's cheer, The woodbox filled by him the night before, The cat beneath the stove, the simmering pots, His wife who moves from table to the door, The wood that must be sawed before it rots. And shouldering his burden, he strides down, With quickening step, the leaf-strewn path through town |