The ruckling pool, torn grey by Pendry Weir,
Became Cocytus to my boy time fear.
Two haw-trees, pulping fat their close, green fruits
Turned cuttlefish below, wagging no roots
But narrow tentacles. Old Jacob Fry
Tells how he drained this pool one hot July
When drought had sucked the white stream thick and slow:
Fish, four-foot deep, shone thirty feet below.
Leaning to drop a stone, the farmboy whews
Bewildered that his confident ear should lose
All thud for grounding. Now he fears to stay,
And walks by whistling on another day.
Here, when the black bees blundered in the heat
Half-drunk, rifling the fine-flurred meadowsweet,
I stripped and bathed. At first, numb for delight,
I lost all thought but this--Come, you must fight
Free from the swirl. But when blank eyes grew clear
Like a pit-pattering mouse came fluttered fear.
Now here and there slide snakish eels, now voles
Bolt hizzing over the brook to round, black holes.
These groping roots perhaps will grip my flesh
Till I grow tired of screaming: so the mesh
Will move, my bones will crackle, I sink down;
So to an end.
Or in some cave of brown
Sluttering scum and broad, plump bladder-weeds
Old fiends may sprawling meditate false deeds;
One, ware of prey, slip out lean fingers, pluck
Unusual meat through water’s rush and ruck.
Yet, braving all, to prove wild fancy vain,
I held my breath and sank. The brook, astrain
And fierce to be free, spun snarling overhead;
Dull roars droned round, cold currents buffeted.
Proud of this daring shewn--but doubtful, too,
Of tempting fortune far--I battled through
To the root-held scroll of turf on the sagging bank,
And carefully muscled up. The sheep-field drank
The wide-spent, white-spilt sun, the wrapping air
Swung flame-like past, and, while I ran, the bare
Close-nibbled grass pushed hot against my feet.
The yeanlings rose and rushed with timid bleat
Full-tilt at the mothering ewe; fed sleek with clover,
Three cows, in mild amazement bending over
The gap-set palings, rubbed their necks or chewed.
But in mid-course I staggered, having trod
Firm on a flat and spiny thistle; stayed
Nursing my foot, half grinning, half dismayed:
Then lay full length, as light-heel time were not;
Pale fears, fantastic perils, all forgot.