Envoy.

Deil take the dirty, trading loon Wad gar the water ca' his wheel, And drift his dyes and poisons doun By fair Tweed-side at Ashiestiel !

LVI

THE LAST CHANCE

Within the streams, Pausanias saith,
That down Cocytus valley flow,
Girdling the gray domain of Death,

The spectral fishes come and go;
The ghosts of trout flit to and fro,
Persephone, fulfil my wish,

And grant that in the shades below

My ghost may land the ghosts of fish.

"Grass of Parnassus."

"Grass of Parnassus.

LVII

APRIL ON TWEED

As birds are fain to build their nest
The first soft sunny day,

So longing wakens in my breast

A month before the May,

When now the wind is from the West,
And Winter melts away.

The snow lies yet on Eildon Hill,
But soft the breezes blow.

If melting snows the waters fill,
We nothing heed the snow,
But we must up and take our will,-
A fishing will we go!

Below the branches brown and bare,

Beneath the primrose lea,

The trout lies waiting for his fare,

A hungry trout is he;

He's hooked, and springs and splashes there

Like salmon from the sea.

Oh, April tide's a pleasant tide,

However times may fall,

And sweet to welcome Spring, the Bride,

You hear the mavis call;

But all adown the water-side

The Spring's most fair of all.

LVIII

From THE BALLADE OF THE REAL

AND IDEAL

O visions of salmon tremendous,

Of trout of unusual weight,

Of waters that wander as Ken does,

Ye come through the Ivory Gate!

But the skies that bring never a "spate,"
But the flies that catch up in a thorn,
But the creel that is barren of freight,
Through the portals of horn!

Fair dreams of things golden and great,
Ye come through the Ivory Gate;
But the facts that are bleak and forlorn,
Through the portals of horn.

"Books and Bookmen."

"Rhymes à la Mode."

LIX

THE LAST CAST

The Angler's Apology

Just one cast more! how many a year
Beside how many a pool and stream,
Beneath the falling leaves and sere,

I've sighed, reeled up, and dreamed my dream.

Dreamed of the sport since April first,

Her hands fulfilled of flowers and snow,
Adown the pastoral valleys burst

Where Ettrick and where Teviot flow.

Dreamed of the singing showers that break,
And sting the lochs, or near or far,
And rouse the trout, and stir "the take,"
From Urigil to Lochinvar.

Dreamed of the kind propitious sky

O'er Ari Innes brooding grey ;

The sea trout, rushing at the fly,

Breaks the black wave with sudden spray !

Brief are man's days at best; perchance
I waste my own, who have not seen

The castled palaces of France

Shine on the Loire in summer green.