SURFACE WATER

                                             BY JOHN DUNCAN

        WITH hair unkempt a poor soul stooped
            Beside a rank, dull, stagnant pool.
            His hungry eyes were sorrowful,
        And over them his gold hair drooped—
                 His gold hair withered as by fire.
                 And in the foul, bedabbled mire
        His pallid, trembling fingers sank
            Half-hid, for, as a sun-parched flower
            Absorbs the long time wished-for shower,
        The muddy wave he slowly drank;
                 Desiring that, denied to men,
                 That whoso drinks ne’er thirsts again.