Sometimes for the sake of cultivating versatility in location though 
not in result, | 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, | 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 
Te 
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 ama 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 | 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 
88 
