UNDER

In this house, she said, in this high second storey, In this room where we sit, above the midnight street, There runs a rivulet, narrow but very rapid, Under the still floor and your unconscious feet.

The lamp on the table made a cone of light That spread to the base of the walls: above was in gloom. I heard her words with surprise; had I worked here so long, And never divined that secret of the room?

"But how," I asked, "does the water climb so high?" "I do not know," she said, "but the thing is there; Pull up the boards while I go and fetch you a rod." She passed, and I heard her creaking descend the stair.

And I rose and rolled the Turkey carpet back From the two broad boards by the north wall she had named, And, hearing already the crumple of water, I knelt And lifted the first of them up; and the water gleamed,

Bordered with little frosted heaps of ice, And, as she came back with a rod and line that swung, I moved the other board; in the yellow light The water trickled frostily, slackly along.

I took the tackle, a stiff black rubber worm, That stuck out its pointed tail from a cumbrous hook, "But there can't be fishing in water like this," I said. And she, with weariness, "There is no ice there. Look."

And I stood there, gazing down at a stream in spate, Holding the rod in my undecided hand... Till it all in a moment grew smooth and still and clear, And along its deep bottom of slaty grey sand

Three scattered little trout, as black as tadpoles, Came waggling slowly along the glass-dark lake, And I swung my arm to drop my pointing worm in, And then I stopped again with a little shake.

For I heard the thin gnat-like voices of the trout —My body felt woolly and sick and astray and cold— Crying with mockery in them: "You are not allowed To take us, you know, under ten years old."

And the room swam, the calm woman and the yellow lamp, The table, and the dim-glistering walls, and the floor, And the stream sank away, and all whirled dizzily, And I moaned, and the pain at my heart grew more and more.

And I fainted away, utterly miserable. Falling in a place where there was nothing to pass, Knowing all sorrows and the mothers and sisters of sorrows, And the pain of the darkness before anything ever was.