Cornelius visualized the lines he would cut across the Fens swamp
Like roads inside his mind, same ditches he cut in land so damp
Now he was cutting like a man obsessed into Welny deep and long
Toward the lower great Ouse where the silver eel belongs
Slowly the old Fens lands were being drained
The peat was the fuel the canal a sacred vein
These ideas through his head minutes before sleep
As he slept the humid air rose from bog deep
Night tangled with thin lines of sweat making him shiver
Carving across his face like his new trench rivers
dampening his pillow soaking his dream
Like the Old bedford steam
Imagining himself descending from the overrig
Found himself in a golden afternoon on the dig
something clamped down on him and wrangled
he looked down a giant eel bit into his ankle
He woke, morning already through the tent
Supervised the dig with the drudges he sent
He stayed far from the water watching, feeling fearful
A whirl of a ripple on the surface he became careful
A long black shape reeled up in the water, bit a worker's face off
Vermuyden screamed the line of labourers jumped out of the trough
He ordered the grunts to reassemble his tent on higher ground
Cornelius never lost his fear of water, never again slept sound
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