C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

The Boatman’s Song

From ‘Songs of Toil’: Translation of John Eliot Bowen

DOWN-STREAM ’tis all by moonlight,

Up-stream at blazing noon;

Down-stream upon the ripples,

Up-stream through sandy dune.

Down-stream, the helm held loosely,

A pipe between the lips;

Up-stream, like beast one straineth

And galls the breat and hips.

What boots it that I seem like

The river’s king to-day,

If to-morrow like a beggar,

Despised, I tug away?

My pleasuring leaves no furrow

Upon the water-plain;

The marks of struggling footsteps

Long in the sand remain.