I
I find my mind as it were a deep water.
Sometimes I play with a thought and hammer and bend it,
Till tired and displeased with that I toss it away,
Or absently let it slip to the yawning water:
And down it sinks, forgotten for many a day.
But a time comes when tide or tempest washes it
High on the beach, and I find that shape of mine,
Or I haul it out from the depths on some casual rope,
Or, passing over that spot in quiet shine,
I see, where my boat's shadow makes deep the water,
A patch of colour, far down, from the bottom apart,
A wavering sign like the gleam from an ancient anchor,
Brown fixing and fleeting flakes; and I feel my heart
Wake to a strange excitement; so that I stop,
Put up my paddles and dredge with a careful net:
And I catch it, and see it stir, and feel its weight,
And pull till it nears and breaks from the water wet.
And my eyes dwell on that old abandoned thing
Recovered by chance. For the shape I had found so dull
Has crusted and changed in secrecy and silence,
And its surface shines like a pearl, most beautiful.
II
In bed I lie, and my thoughts come filing by,
All forms and faces, cheerful, serene and sad:
Some clear, some mistily showing and fragmentary,
Some altered in size or shape since last they were seen.