Half pants, half whistles, in her draught;

The cadence of a creaking oar

Falls drowsily; a corded raft

Creeps slowly in the noonday gleam,

And wheresoe'er a shadow sleeps

The men lie by, or half a-dream,

Stand leaning at the idle sweeps.

And all day long in the quiet bay

The eddying amber depths retard,

And hold, as in a ring, at play,

The heavy saw-logs notched and scarred;

And yonder between cape and shoal,

Where the long currents swing and shift,

An aged punt-man with his pole

Is searching in the parted drift.

At moments from the distant glare

The murmur of a railway steals

Round yonder jutting point the air

Is beaten with the puff of wheels;

[34]

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