Lachrimae.
Imagine the hands—
They trail by the waters edge,
Softening with the lick of saline spray,
As the vessel bobs, up and down
Like idle gulls, waiting still,
And day, again becomes night
And nothing stirs from the nets below,
And stars emerge, in twinkling flocks,
And hunger comes, and thirst, and loneliness,
Till morning, when the nets are full of life—
The hands tug at the netted shoals,
But when all are but landed,
The rope, withering and tired, snaps,
Releasing the fish from below,
Back down beneath the lather of swirling white surf.