1 Trees to the very water's edge— Pond lilies white and full, Bulrush and quaking grass and sedge Where the moorhen clucks, does this seem to you Anything more than an hour or two Of hot, uneasy pull? 2 A waste of mud where the sea scum floats Forgotten of the tide, Gully and gut, and stranded boats Stretched like carcasses—What do you see Just the mud & eternity And nothing else beside. 3 The wind in the bents the hiss of the sand Driven along the shore, The sweep of flat alluvial land In a dozen lines of brown and gray. How does it strike you—What do you say Landscape and nothing more? 4 A sloping street with a railway arch Spanning the end of it, A grey-stone chapel-prim and starch Set in its own half acre of green Railed like a jail and below-half seen Red blurs from the lamps just lit. 5 The stillness of dawn-the broad red glow Breaking behind the pines, The mist in the valley and far below A white smoke puff as the first train flies Into the open, where serpentwise The river curves and shines. 6 Gravel foundation pits half done Gaping and deep and dry, Unfinished houses–one by one Standing guard over open cellars To catch unwary inebriate dwellers In the thick packed houses by. 7 A voice in the street, some sound unheeded By others, a woman's gait, (But that no two women could walk as she did) And you drift thro' the past on a broken ship Derelict ten years–Give me the slip While I stand on the shore & wait—
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