JUNE O’ THE YEAR 157 
Think you this day is ended? Be more witful. 
*Tis just begun. The boat and I are getting 
ready for the real day. This pretty outing was 
mere make-believe and is poet-prelude to the 
poem of the day yet to be written. Thus I go 
and get two women very dear to me, and who 
never are quite out of my thoughts and bring 
sundry edibles and cushions, and hats and um- 
brellas to obsquatulate the freckles of the day’s 
journey under the sun, and with blankets and 
baskets and kickshaws, and knickknacks and 
giggling in various meters, we three enter the 
waiting boat; and one woman in the stern and one 
for a mermaid in the prow, and I for stevedore 
and miscellaneous roustabout as also, speaking 
poetically though sweatingly, the gondolier, set 
out. The day is beginning well. I now have 
the oar locks and the other oar to keep the one 
oar of the morning company. So we set out on 
the voyage of the day. 
The wind has spread her sails just a wee bit. 
A boat-sail would not flutter to so trifling a wind 
if one were to call it by so imposing a name. 
The morning is cool and sweet. The river widens 
upward at this part of our voyage. A line of 
birch trees gleams white along the shore, holding 
up their tops of green tracery against the sky. 
The day is very sweet. My cargo smiles and 
sometimes sings. 
The sky inland as we voyage is piled with 
clouds anchored and white. A thing I have 
