Fish and Shadow
The salmon-trout drifts in the stream, The soul of the salmon-trout floats over the stream Like a little wafer of light. The salmon moves in the sun-shot, bright shallow sea. . . . As light as the shadow of the fish that falls through the water, She came into the large room by the stair, Yawning a little she came with the sleep still upon her. 'I am just from bed. The sleep is still in my eyes. 'Come. I have had a long dream.' And I: That wood? 'And two springs have passed us.' 'Not so far, no, not so far now, There is a place but no one else knows it A field in a valley . . . Qu'ieu sui avinen, Ieu lo sai,' She must speak of the time Of Arnaut de Mareuil, I thought, 'qu'ieu sui avinen.’ Light as the shadow of the fish That falls through the pale green water.
Fish and Shadow - meaning Summary
Dream and Watery Memory
Pound's poem links a drifting fish and its pale shadow to a brief, dreamlike encounter. A woman arrives, half-asleep, and recalls a distant place and past lovers; the speaker overlays this with a medieval allusion to Arnaut de Mareuil. Water and light imagery create a fragile sense of soul, memory, and passage. The scene feels suspended between waking and dreaming, emphasizing transience and the delicate persistence of remembered longing.
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