THE BROOK TROUT

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THE BROOK TROUT

How swift and strong its waters glide-
The brook-a clear, resistless tide,
And slowly down the mountain side
The angler goes.

The soft air drifts through solemn pines
And dreamily the sunlight shines,
And past the alders, rocks, and vines
The current flows.

Above the depths that now conceal
What tempting lures may yet reveal
An instant whirls the nimble reel,
Then drops the fly,

And by the glancing ripples caught
A moment, there the line is taut,
And then, as suddenly as thought,
Goes whirling by.

And where the swift brook turning trends,
Just as the broadening ripple ends,
There comes a tug, a thrill that sends

Along the rod,

A message from the slender tip

From whence the liquid diamonds drip,

That violently makes it dip

And downward nod.

And then it bends from tip to butt,

While through the pools the ripples cut,

And close and closer yet is shut,

Then upward flies,

As drawn from out his pebbly hold,
Brightly against the forest mould,
Vermilion, silver, black, and gold,

The brook trout lies.

-Ernest McGaffey.

THE FIRST WORM

This morning as I went to work
(For work I was not wishing),
A worm crawled briskly out and said:
"Come on, let's go a-fishing!"

I wonder how that worm knew me,
My thoughts, my inmost wishes,
Which ran, not slow to tasks, but swift
To brooks and little fishes.

Instead of toil and noisy streets,
Sad hearts and anxious feeling,
There came a haze of golden dreams
With blessing on me stealing.

I felt the warm, rich tide of spring
Mount in me with elation;

I heard the call of earth and sky,
The red-gods' invitation.

I saw the lights, the wimpled gleams
Of amber waters flowing;

I smelled the fragrance of the woods
With birch and spice-buds blowing.

THE BONNY TWEED FOR ME

I heard the wind's low symphonies,
The partridge drum-call rolling,
In every hidden copse a thrush
His silver bell was tolling.

Over moor, beside the singing stream,
Lost boyhood came to meeting,

And life was as a timeless day

That ends with mother's greeting.

Once more I built my midday fire
And broiled a trouty treasure,
And ate and drank and praised the Lord
For life and simple pleasure.

I've had, thanks be, a happy hour
Of dreams and idle wishing,
And all because one early worm

Said, "Come, let's go a-fishing."

-Anonymous.

Permission of "The Independent and The Weekly Review."

223

THE BONNY TWEED FOR ME!

The hunter's e'e grows bright as the fox frae covert steals,

The fowler lo'es the gun, wi' the pointer at his heels, But of a' the sports I ken, that can stir the heart wi'

glee,

The troutin stream, the fishin' gad, the bonny Tweed for me.

Wi' the gowan at the waterside, the primrose on the brae,

When sheets o' snawy blossom cleed the cherry and the

slae,

When sun and wind are wooin' baith, the leaflet on the

tree;

Then the troutin' stream, the fishin' gad, the bonny Tweed for me.

When the fresh green sward is yieldin' wi' a spring aneath the fit,

And swallows thrang on eager wing out ower the waters flit;

While the joyous laverocks, toorin' high, shoot out their concert free

Then the troutin' stream, the fishin' gad, the bonny Tweed for me.

Cheer'd wi' the honest ploughman's sang, that mak's his wark nae toil

The flocks o' sea-gulls round him as his coulter tears the soil,

When the craw-schule meets in council grave upon the

furrowed lea

Then the troutin' stream, the fishin' gad, the bonny Tweed for me.

The modest wagtail joukin past, wi' saft and buoyant

flight,

And gurglin streams are glancin' by, pure as the crystal bright,

THE BONNY TWEED FOR ME

225

When fish rise thick and threefauld as the drake or

woodcock flee

Then the troutin' stream, the fishin' gad, the bonny Tweed for me.

I like the merry spring, wi' the bluid in nature's veins, The dancin' streamlet's music, as it trinkles through the stanes,

The silver white upon the hook, my light gad bending

free

Wha wadna visit bonny Tweed and share sic sport wi' me?

While there! time wings wi' speed o' thought, the day flees past sae sune,

That wha wad dream o' weariness till a' the sport is

dune?

We hanker till the latest blink is shed frae gloamin's e'e,
Laith, laith to quit the troutin' stream, the fishin' gad,
and flee!
-W. A. Foster.

THE STRIPED BASS

(Roccus Lineatus)

The taking of the striped bass is what the salt-water fisherman claims the right of terming the high-water mark of all angling.-Van Dorne in The Fishes of the East Atlantic Coast.

There in great deeps of ocean floods

Where narrow, rock-strewn channels sweep,
The strip'd bass hold their paradise

Unrivall'd roamers of the deep.