University of Virginia Library

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I see little and large sea-dots, some inhabited, some uninhabited;
I see two boats with nets, lying off the shore of Paumanok, quite still;
I see ten fishermen waiting—they discover now a thick school of mossbonkers—they drop the join'd seine-ends in the water,
The boats separate—they diverge 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 negligently ankle-deep in the water, pois'd on strong legs;
The boats are partly drawn up—the water slaps against them;
On the sand, in heaps and winrows, well out from the water, lie the green-back'd spotted mossbonkers.