A Muse of Water

We who must act as handmaidens To our own goddess, turn too fast, Trip on our hems, to glimpse the muse Gliding below her lake or sea, Are left, long-staring after her, Narcissists by necessity; Or water-carriers of our young Till waters burst, and white streams flow Artesian, from the lifted breast: Cupbearers then, to tiny gods, Imperious table-pounders, who Are final arbiters of thirst. Fasten the blouse, and mount the steps From kitchen taps to Royal Barge, Assume the trident, don the crown, Command the Water Music now That men bestow on Virgin Queens; Or goddessing above the waist, Appear as swan on Thames or Charles Where iridescent foam conceals The paddle-stroke beneath the glide: Immortal feathers preened in poems! Not our true, intimate nature, stained By labor, and the casual tide. Masters of civilization, you Who moved to riverbank from cave, Putting up tents, and deities, Though every rivulet wander through The final, unpolluted glades To cinder-bank and culvert-lip, And all the pretty chatterers Still round the pebbles as they pass Lightly over their watercourse, And even the calm rivers flow, We have, while springs and skies renew, Dry wells, dead seas, and lingering drouth. Water itself is not enough. Harness her turbulence to work For man: fill his reflecting pools. Drained for his cofferdams, or stored In reservoirs for his personal use: Turn switches! Let the fountains play! And yet these buccaneers still kneel Trembling at the water's verge: “Cool River-Goddess, sweet ravine, Spirit of pool and shade, inspire!” So he needs poultice for his flesh. So he needs water for his fire. We rose in mists and died in clouds Or sank below the trammeled soil To silent conduits underground, Joining the blindfish, and the mole. A gleam of silver in the shale: Lost murmur! Subterranean moan! So flows in dark caves, dries away, What would have brimmed from bank to bank, Kissing the fields you turned to stone, Under the boughs your axes broke. And you blame streams for thinning out, plundered by man’s insatiate want? Rejoice when a faint music rises Out of a brackish clump of weeds, Out of the marsh at ocean-side, Out of the oil-stained river’s gleam, By the long causeways and gray piers Your civilizing lusts have made. Discover the deserted beach Where ghosts of curlews safely wade: Here the warm shallows lave your feet Like tawny hair of magdalens. Here, if you care, and lie full-length, Is water deep enough to drown.