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The spot is flaked with mist, that fills, Thickening into rolls more dank, The thresholds and the window-sills, And smokes on every bank. The river stagnates, pestilent With carrion by the current sent This way and that—and yonder lies The moon, just like a woman dead, That they have smothered overhead, Deep in the skies. In a few boats alone there gleam Lamps that light up and magnify The backs, bent over stubbornly, Of the old fishers of the stream, Who since last evening, steadily, —For God knows what night-fishery— Have let their black nets downward slow Into the silent water go. The noisome water there below. Down in the river's deeps, ill-fate And black mischances breed and hatch. Unseen of them, and lie in wait As for their prey. And these they catch With weary toil—believing still That simple, honest work is best— At night, beneath the shifting mist Unkind and chill. So hard and harsh, yon clock-towers tell. With muffled hammers, like a knell, The midnight hour. From tower to tower So hard and harsh the midnights chime. The midnights harsh of autumn time, The weary midnights' bell. The crew Of fishers black have on their back Nought save a nameless rag or two; And their old hats distil withal, And drop by drop let crumbling fall Into their necks, the mist-flakes all. The hamlets and their wretched huts Are numb and drowsy, and all round The willows too, and walnut trees, 'Gainst which the Easterly fierce breeze Has waged its feud. No bayings from the forest sound, No cry the empty midnight cuts— The midnight space that grows imbrued With damp breaths from the ashy ground. The fishers hail each other not— Nor help—in their fraternal lot; Doing but that which must be done. Each fishes for himself alone. And this one gathers in his net, Drawing it tighter yet, His freight of petty misery; And that one drags up recklessly Diseases from their slimy bed; While others still their meshes spread Out to the sorrows that drift by Threateningly nigh; And the last hauls aboard with force The wreckage dark of his remorse. The river, round its corners bending, And with the dyke-heads intertwined. Goes hence—since what times out of mind?— Toward the far horizon wending Of weariness unending. Upon the banks, the skins of wet Black ooze-heaps nightly poison sweat. And the mists are their fleeces light That curl up to the houses' height. In their dark boats, where nothing stirs, Not even the red-flamed torch that blurs With halos huge, as if of blood. The thick felt of the mist's white hood, Death with his silence seals the sere Old fishermen of madness here. The isolated, they abide Deep in the mist—still side by side. But seeing one another never; Weary are both their arms—and yet Their work their ruin doth beget. Each for himself works desperately, He knows not why—no dreams has he; Long have they worked, for long, long years, While every instant brings its fears; Nor have they ever Quitted the borders of their river, Where 'mid the moonlit mists they strain To fish misfortune up amain. If but in this their night they hailed each other And brothers' voices might console a brother! But numb and sullen, on they go, With heavy brows and backs bent low, While their small lights beside them gleam, Flickering feebly on the stream. Like blocks of shadow they are there. Nor ever do their eyes divine That far away beyond the mists Acrid and spongy—there exists A firmament where 'mid the night. Attractive as a loadstone, bright Prodigious planets shine. The fishers black of that black plague, They are the lost immeasurably, Among the knells, the distance vague, The yonder of those endless plains That stretch more far than eye can see: And the damp autumn midnight rains Into their souls' monotony.
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