In a moment all was stir, for the fishing had been slack. Two
boats put out with the lithe brown seine. The dark line had
turned, but the school was still behind, churning the water in
clumsy haste; they were coming in.

Then the brit broke in silvery leaping waves on the shelving beach.
The threefold hunt was over; the porpoises turned out to sea in
search of fresh quarry; and the seine, dragged by ready hands, came
slowly, stubbornly in with its quivering treasure of fish. They
had sought a haven and found none; the brit lay dying in flickering
iridescent heaps as the bare-legged babies of the village gathered
them up; and far away over the water I saw a single grey speck; it
was the following bird.


The curtain of river haze falls back; barge and bird are alike
gone, and the lamplighter has lit the first gas-lamp on the far
side of the bridge. Every night I watch him come, his progress
marked by the great yellow eyes that wake the dark. Sometimes he
walks quickly; sometimes he loiters on the bridge to chat, or stare
at the dark water; but he always comes, leaving his watchful
deterrent train behind him to police the night.

Once Demeter in the black anguish of her desolation searched for
lost Persephone by the light of Hecate's torch; and searching all
in vain, spurned beneath her empty feet an earth barren of her
smile; froze with set brows the merry brooks and streams; and smote
forest, and plain, and fruitful field, with the breath of her last
despair, until even Iambe's laughing jest was still. And then when