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.
MLA citation:
Duncan, John. “Surface Water.” The Evergreen; A Northern Seasonal, vol. 3, Summer 1896, p. 28. Evergreen Digital Edition, edited by Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, 2016-2018. Yellow Nineties 2.0, Ryerson University Centre for Digital Humanities, 2019. https://1890s.ca/egv3_duncan_water/