The Old Punt 



through the maze, we emerged in a narrow creek all 

 walled in and enclosed with vegetation. 



Running her ashore on the soft oozy ground, we 

 rested under a great hawthorn bush that grew at the 

 very edge, and, looking upwards, could see in the 

 canopy above the black interlaced twigs of a dove's nest. 

 Tall willow poles rose up all around, and above them 

 was the deep blue of the sky. On the willow stems 

 that were sometimes under water the bark had peeled 

 in scales ; beneath the surface bunches of red fibrous 

 roots stretched out their slender filaments tipped with 

 white, as if feeling like a living thing for prey. 



A dreamy, slumberous place, where the sedges 

 slept, and the green flags bowed their pointed heads. 

 Under the bushes in the distant nook the moorhen, 

 reassured by the silence, came out from the grey- 

 green grass and the rushes. Surely Calypso's cave 

 could not be far distant, where she with 



work and song the time divides, 

 And through the loom the golden shuttle guides. 



For the Immortals are hiding somewhere still in the 

 woods ; even now I do not weary searching for them. 

 But as we rested a shadow fell from a cloud 

 that covered the sun, and immediately a faint sigh 

 arose from among the sedges and the reeds, and two 

 pale yellow leaves fell from the willows on the water. 



