FISHING LINES

When spring comes and the days are warm,

Then I begin to squirm

To hie me out with spade and hoe

And dig a little worm.

Then to the river's brink I haste

And sit beneath the oaks,

Where slowly through my trousers' seat

The sticky dampness soaks.

I spit upon the wriggling bait,
I cast the hook afar;

And then mosquitoes, flies, and gnats
Apprise me where they are.

They swarm and sally up and down,
They're surely out for blood;-

But round me clings a glorious smell,
The fishy smell of mud.

I get about a million bites-
Upon my hook, I mean;

A million worms lay down their lives,
Worms medium, fat, and lean.
Yet nothing landed. Finny brains
My utmost skill o'ermatch.-
But fishing is the thing that counts,
And not the fish you catch.

For going home I'm hungry, yet
My hunger's satisfied;

I've thought the thoughts of men of old;
I've dreamed: I've brushed aside

THE FISHERMAN'S LIGHT 167

Small moods and cares; I've lived, for once,
As every heart must wish;

And thus, you see, I've caught a world

Of bigger things than fish.

-St. Clair Adams.

THE FISHERMAN'S LIGHT

The air is still, the night is dark,
No ripple breaks the dusky tide;
From isle to isle the fisher's bark,

Like fairy meteor, seems to glide,-
Now lost in shade, now flashing bright;
On sleeping wave and forest tree,
We hail with joy the ruddy light,
Which far into the darksome night
Shines red and cheerily.

With spear high poised and steady hand,
The center of that fiery ray,
Behold the skilful fisher stand,
Prepared to strike the finny prey.
"Now, now!" the shaft has sped below,-
Transfixed the shining prize we see;

On swiftly glides the birch canoe,
The woods send back the long halloo
In echoes loud, and cheerily!

Around yon bluff, whose pine crest hides
The noisy rapids from our sight,

Another bark! another glides!

Red spirits of the murky night!

The bosom of the silent stream

With mimic stars is dotted free;
The tall woods lighten in the beam,

Through darkness shining cheerily.

-Susanna Moodie.

From "The Treasury of Canadian Verse." Permission from E. P. Dutton & Co.

FLY CASTING

A sport that lures the angler on
Amid the silvery glint and gleam
Of eddy cool, or silent pool

Along the shady fishing stream.

The pastime with a thousand thrills,
Where in their haunts the gamy bass
Bring keen delight to speed the flight
Of golden hours that swiftly pass.

A pleasure that revives the soul

Depressed by work and worry's sting,
For near the gleams of rippling streams
Cares take their flight and Joy is king!
-George B. Staff.

Permission of "Field and Stream."

SPEARING

The lake's gold and purple have vanish'd from sight,

The glimmer of twilight is merged into night,

The woods on the borders in blackness are mass'd, The waters in motionless ebony glass'd,

SPEARING

169

The stars that first spangle the pearl of the west
Are lost in the bright blazing crowds of the rest;
Light the torch!-launch the boat!-for to-night we
are here,

The salmon, the quick-darting salmon, to spear.
We urge our light craft by the push of the oar

Through the serpent-like stems of the lilies near shore,
And turn the sharp prow at yon crescent-shaped cove,
Made black by the down-hanging boughs of its grove;
The meek eddy-gurgle that whirls at our dip,

Sounds low as the wine-bead which bursts on the lip;
On the lake, from the flame of our torch, we behold
A pyramid pictured in spangles of gold,

And the marble-like depths on each side of the blaze
Are full of dark sparkles, far in as we gaze;

The loon from his nook in the bank, sends a cry; The night-hawk darts down, with a rush, through the sky;

In gutturals hoarse, on his green shiny log

To his shrill piping tribe, croaks the patriarch frog;
And bleat, low, and bark, from the banks, mingle faint
With the anchorite whippoorwill's mournful complaint.
We glide in the cove; let the torch be flared low!
The spot where our victim is lurking, 'twill show;
Midst the twigs of this dead sunken tree-top he hies,
Poise, comrade, your spear! or farewell to our prize!
It darts; to the blow his best efforts are bent,
A white bubbling streak shows its rapid descent;
He grasps it as upward it shoots through the air,
Three cheers for our luck!-the barb'd victim is there!
Give way, boys! give way, boys! our prow points to
shore,

Give way, boys! give way, boys! our labor is o'er.
As the black mass of forest our torchlight receives,
It breaks into groups of trunks, branches, and leaves:
Low perch'd on the hemlock, we've blinded with light
Yon gray-headed owl!-See him flutter from sight!
And the orator frog, as we glide with our glow,

Stops his speech with a groan, and dives splashing below;

One long and strong pull-the prow grates on the sand, Three cheers for our luck, boys! as spring we to land. -Alfred Billings Street.

THE ANGLER'S POSSESSIONS

He has rods built of greenheart, of ash, and of cane, And though some may be short and some may be long,

Still it is a display he can show when he's vain,
Of anglers and angling and rods that are strong.

He has reels and has lines of various sizes,

Which have aided him well with salmon and trout; His children adorned are with sundry won prizes,

Which time and good fortune have caused come about.

He has creels and has nets and has gaffs quite a lot, And waders and oilskins to weather the storms; He has Phantoms and Devons and split leaden shot, And traces and tapers in many good forms.