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.