Classic Poem

Upon the water in the boat,
I sit and sketch as down I float:
The stream is wide, the view is fair,
I sketch it looking backward there.

The stream is strong, and as I sit
And view the picture that we quit,
It flows and flows and bears the boat,
And I sit sketching as we float.

Still as we go the things I see
E'en as I see them, cease to be;
Their angles swerve, and with the boat
The whole perspective seems to float.

Still as I sit with something new
The foreground intercepts my view;
Even the towering mountain range
From the first moments suffers change;

Each pointed height, each wavy line
To wholly other forms combine,
Proportions vary, colours fade,
And all the landscape is remade.

Depicted neither far nor near
And larger there and smaller here,
And varying down from old to new,
E'en I can hardly think it true

Yet still I look, and still I sit,
Adjusting, shaping, altering it,
And still the current bears the boat,
And me, still sketching as I float.