free-verse44 lines
Under
by Sir John Collings SquireIn 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.