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Themes and Variations
FISHING.
A downy-breasted sky, a muffled sun,
A polished sea, blue as the hyacinth spray
When spring winds smooth its buds out, one by one,
And lift the winging swallow on her way.
There’s not a crease on all the azure sheet,
No rounding breaker stirs the seaweed hair,
Even the thistle-down’s adventurous fleet
Would fear to launch upon the dozing air.
And lulled by tides that scarcely lift her prow,
Our boat sits like a nest on summer bough.
A polished sea, blue as the hyacinth spray
When spring winds smooth its buds out, one by one,
And lift the winging swallow on her way.
There’s not a crease on all the azure sheet,
No rounding breaker stirs the seaweed hair,
Even the thistle-down’s adventurous fleet
Would fear to launch upon the dozing air.
And lulled by tides that scarcely lift her prow,
Our boat sits like a nest on summer bough.
And near me, all in summer-white arrayed,
The delicate fabric of an Indian loom
(Threaded by dusky fingers, in the shade
Of tropic branches’ scarlet-shaken bloom),—
My lady dreams; her fingers hardly feel
The line that slackens on the idle reel,
Where waves of quivering network, veined with light,
Are greener than the woods in summer height,
Whose fringe of foam that flutters on the sand,
Is white as daisy milk on pasture-land.
Whose song is softer than the tales of sleep,
The immeasurable language of the deep.
The delicate fabric of an Indian loom
(Threaded by dusky fingers, in the shade
Of tropic branches’ scarlet-shaken bloom),—
My lady dreams; her fingers hardly feel
The line that slackens on the idle reel,
Where waves of quivering network, veined with light,
Are greener than the woods in summer height,
Whose fringe of foam that flutters on the sand,
Is white as daisy milk on pasture-land.
Whose song is softer than the tales of sleep,
The immeasurable language of the deep.