3 At the Fishing Settlement

October, and a rain-blurred face
Walking, walking into the sea. The place
Was a bare sea-battered town
With its single street leading down
Onto a gravel beach. Sea-winds
Had long picked the hills clean
Of everything but tussock and stones,
And pines that dropt small brittle cones
Onto a soured soil. And old houses flanking
The street hung poised like driftwood planking
Blown together and could not outlast
The next window-shuddering blast
From the storm-whitened sea.
It was bitterly cold; I could see
Where muffled against gusty spray
She walked the clinking shingle; a stray
Dog whimpered, and pushed its small
Wet nose into my hand;- that is all.
Yet I am haunted by that face,
That dog, and that bare bitter place.