Under

    In this house, she said, in this high second storey,
    In this room where we sit, above the midnight street,
    There runs a rivulet, narrow but very rapid,
    Under the still floor and your unconscious feet.

    The lamp on the table made a cone of light
    That spread to the base of the walls: above was in gloom.
    I heard her words with surprise; had I worked here so long,
    And never divined that secret of the room?

    "But how," I asked, "does the water climb so high?"
    "I do not know," she said, "but the thing is there;
    Pull up the boards while I go and fetch you a rod."
    She passed, and I heard her creaking descend the stair.

    And I rose and rolled the Turkey carpet back
    From the two broad boards by the north wall she had named,
    And, hearing already the crumple of water, I knelt
    And lifted the first of them up; and the water gleamed,

    Bordered with little frosted heaps of ice,
    And, as she came back with a rod and line that swung,
    I moved the other board; in the yellow light
    The water trickled frostily, slackly along.

    I took the tackle, a stiff black rubber worm,
    That stuck out its pointed tail from a cumbrous hook,
    "But there can't be fishing in water like this," I said.
    And she, with weariness, "There is no ice there.    Look."

    And I stood there, gazing down at a stream in spate,
    Holding the rod in my undecided hand...
    Till it all in a moment grew smooth and still and clear,
    And along its deep bottom of slaty grey sand

    Three scattered little trout, as black as tadpoles,
    Came waggling slowly along the glass-dark lake,
    And I swung my arm to drop my pointing worm in,
    And then I stopped again with a little shake.

    For I heard the thin gnat-like voices of the trout
    My body felt woolly and sick and astray and cold,
    Crying with mockery in them: "You are not allowed
    To take us, you know, under ten years old."

    And the room swam, the calm woman and the yellow lamp,
    The table, and the dim-glistering walls, and the floor,
    And the stream sank away, and all whirled dizzily,
    And I moaned, and the pain at my heart grew more and more.

    And I fainted away, utterly miserable.
    Falling in a place where there was nothing to pass,
    Knowing all sorrows and the mothers and sisters of sorrows,
    And the pain of the darkness before anything ever was.