The Pike

The river turns, Leaving a place for the eye to rest, A furred, a rocky pool, A bottom of water. The crabs tilt and eat, leisurely, And the small fish lie, without shadow, motionless, Or drift lazily in and out of the weeds. The bottom-stones shimmer back their irregular striations, And the half-sunken branch bends away from the gazer's eye. A scene for the self to abjure!- And I lean, almost into the water, My eye always beyond the surface reflection; I lean, and love these manifold shapes, Until, out from a dark cove, From beyond the end of a mossy log, With one sinuous ripple, then a rush, A thrashing-up of the whole pool The pike strikes.