The rain fell fast. The river rushed and hissed. It licked up and swallowed the island, while I waited alone on the lessening bank with my sheaves of corn in a heap.
From the shadows of the opposite shore the boat crosses with a woman at the helm.
I cry to her, "Come to my island coiled round with hungry water, and take away my year's harvest."
She comes, and takes all that I have to the last grain; I ask her to take me.
But she says, "No"—the boat is laden with my gift and no room is left for me.
18
The evening beckons, and I would fain follow the travellers who sailed in the last ferry of the ebb-tide to cross the dark.
Some were for home, some for the farther shore, yet all have ventured to sail.
But I sit alone at the landing, having left my home and missed the boat: summer is gone and my winter harvest is lost.
I wait for that love which gathers failures to sow them in tears on the dark, that they may bear fruit when day rises anew.