A Paumanok Picture
Two boats with nets lying off the sea-beach, quite still,
Ten fishermen waitingthey discover a thick school of mossbonkersthey drop the
joind seine-ends in the water,
The boats separate and row off, each on its rounding course to the beach, enclosing the
mossbonkers,
The net is drawn in by a windlass by those who stop ashore,
Some of the fishermen lounge in their boats, others stand ankle-deep in the water,
poisd
on strong legs,
The boats partly drawn up, the water slapping against them,
Strewd on the sand in heaps and windrows, well out from the water, the
green-backd
spotted mossbonkers.
Poems by Walt Whitman