The Old Decoy-Duck

WITHIN the cobwebbed loft he sits
’Mid spars and caufs and wreck of things,
Who, couched in sedgy marshes, heard
Wheel to his lure swift vibrant wings.

Below him creep the lapping tides,
Before, down bleak receding lines,
The shuttles of the waning year
Crimson Acoaxet’s woof of pines ;

He marks the lowering cloud-wrack’s flight,
When spurned before the rising gale,
The homing fisher-fleet, close-reefed,
Drives up the channel, sail by sail;

He sees great sunsets burn and fade,
And, through his close-set window bars,
Tremble along the dusky wave
The twilight splendor of lone stars ;

To him all sights and sounds are one ;
Not the slow drip of summer rain,
Nor, when fierce rocking gusts go by,
The clash of sleet against the pane,

No faint alarm of distant guns
That wake the halcyon’s clamorous brood,
Or thunder on the bridge of hooves,
Shall rouse him from his timeless mood.