Sometimes for the sake of cultivating versatility in location though 

 not in result, I take up my traps and find a new bank to sit upon and 

 listen to the whine of the wind in the pine-trees (O the infinite sadness 

 of it!), or walk on and see the stream edge its way to the base of a 

 sand dune where not a grass tussock roots in the shifting sands, which 

 climbing, 1 see some friends I love, fishing at long distance, and out- 

 ward the sweep of the wondrous lake with sand dunes sowing the shore 

 with melancholy, or half inland again see the river moving meditatively 

 toward the lake with its quiet meadows edging its quiet goings. Here 

 the swallows skim and the birds build and rejoice, and the white clover 

 and the full-sapped milkweed vie with each other in their donative of 

 odors. There the pine-trees clump together in neighborly fashion and 



whisper (sweet, sweet, their whis- 

 per is) together concerning sor- 

 row they have shared together, 

 and a crow flaps lazily along the 

 sky to some lonely pines across 

 the river But I must not dally. 

 I am a fisherman. I must to my 



vocation , and I go down to where my boat is anchored in lush grasses 

 and unmoor it, and trail my line in the water what time I row leisurely 

 where the fishes ought to be. If they come not to me I go to them. 

 And the lap of the water against the prow is delicious, and the wind 

 from the lake drifts up stream like a wind taking holiday, and the waters 

 are clear and dainty, and heaven leans and looks full-face into the 

 stream. Do you own a boat, friend? Then you are rich. I feel poor 

 no longer since this boat swung at the end of my rusty chain, and the 

 oars across its breast were mine. And I forget to fish, but remember 

 to dream, and the landscape is fair enough to be part of heaven, and the 

 sky is utter blue and utter high, and the lake can be seen at a distance 

 leaning over to look at me, and the sole pine-tree stands a sentinel of 



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