The path across the quaking bog
lies not quite where the others said.
(The seaman casts his thought ahead,
but sandbanks shift under the fog
giving the lie to chart and log.)
We must be careful where we tread:
the path across the quaking bog
lies not quite where the others said.
Watery mud-holes suck and clog
and to our vision’s limit spread
flat as the sea, and sea-like fed
on hopes that sought (but found the quag)
the path across the quaking bog.