youth-bereft

Updated: May 19, 2025

The thunder receded; the rain was less vehement: the boats and the oars had drifted against the banks. And always the patient river bore its awful burden towards Iffley. As on the towing-path, so on the youth-bereft rafts of the barges, yonder, stood many stupefied elders, staring at the river, staring back from the river into one another's faces. Dispeopled now were the roofs of the barges.

Sir Max Beerbohm - Zuleika Dobson, or, an Oxford love story