I really can’t say—it is many a day
Since my heart was accustomed to feel.
“’Twas my heart-cherished wish for to slay many fish Each day did my malice grow worse, For my heart didn’t soften with doing it so often, But rather, I should say, the reverse.”
“Oh would I were back at Twyford school,
Learning lessons in fear of the birch!”
“Nay, brother!” he cried, “for whatever betide, You are better off here with your perch!
“I am sure you’ll allow you are happier now, With nothing to do but to play; And this single line here, it is perfectly clear, Is much better than thirty a day!
“And as to the rod hanging over your head,
And apparently ready to fall,
That, you know, was the case, when you lived in that place, So it need not be reckoned at all.
“Do you see that old trout with a turn-up-nose snout?
(Just to speak on a pleasanter theme,) Observe, my dear brother, our love for each other— He’s the one I like best in the stream.
“To-morrow I mean to invite him to dine
(We shall all of us think it a treat); If the day should be fine, I’ll just drop him a line, And we’ll settle what time we’re to meet.
“He hasn’t been into society yet,
And his manners are not of the best, So I think it quite fair that it should be my care, To see that he’s properly dressed.”
Many words brought the wind of “cruel” and “kind,”
And that “man suffers more than the brute”: Each several word with patience he heard,
And answered with wisdom to boot.
“What? prettier swimming in the stream,
Than lying all snugly and flat?
Do but look at that dish filled with glittering fish, Has Nature a picture like that?
“What? a higher delight to be drawn from the sight Of fish full of life and of glee?
What a noodle you are! ’tis delightfuller far To kill them than let them go free!
“I know there are people who prate by the hour Of the beauty of earth, sky, and ocean; Of the birds as they fly, of the fish darting by, Rejoicing in Life and in Motion.
“As to any delight to be got from the sight, It is all very well for a flat, But I think it all gammon, for hooking a salmon Is better than twenty of that!
“They say that a man of a right-thinking mind Will love the dumb creatures he sees— What’s the use of his mind, if he’s never inclined To pull a fish out of the Tees?
“Take my friends and my home—as an outcast I’ll roam: Take the money I have in the Bank; It is just what I wish, but deprive me of fish, And my life would indeed be a blank!”
Forth from the house his sister came,
Her brothers for to see,
But when she saw that sight of awe,
The tear stood in her e’e.
“Oh what bait’s that upon your hook,
My brother, tell to me?”
“It is but the fantailed pigeon,
He would not sing for me.”
“Whoe’er would expect a pigeon to sing,
A simpleton he must be!
But a pigeon-cote is a different thing
To the coat that there I see!”
“Oh what bait’s that upon your hook,
Dear brother, tell to me?”
“It is my younger brother,” he cried,
“Oh woe and dole is me!
“I’s mighty wicked, that I is!
Or how could such things be?
Farewell, farewell, sweet sister,
I’m going o’er the sea.”
“And when will you come back again,
My brother, tell to me?”
“When chub is good for human food,
And that will never be!”
She turned herself right round about,
And her heart brake into three, Said, “One of the two will be wet through and through, And t’other’ll be late for his tea!”
The Lady of the Ladle
The Youth at Eve had drunk his fill,
Where stands the “Royal” on the Hill,
And long his mid-day stroll had made,
On the so-called “Marine Parade”—
(Meant, I presume, for Seamen brave,
Whose “march is on the Mountain wave”;
’Twere just the bathing-place for him
Who stays on land till he can swim—)
And he had strayed into the Town,
And paced each alley up and down,
Where still, so narrow grew the way,
The very houses seemed to say,
Nodding to friends across the Street,
“One struggle more and we shall meet.”
And he had scaled that wondrous stair
That soars from earth to upper air,
Where rich and poor alike must climb,
And walk the treadmill for a time.
That morning he had dressed with care,
And put Pomatum on his hair;
He was, the loungers all agreed,
A very heavy swell indeed:
Men thought him, as he swaggered by,
Some scion of nobility,
And never dreamed, so cold his look,
That he had loved—and loved a Cook.
Upon the beach he stood and sighed
Unheedful of the treacherous tide;
Thus sang he to the listening main,
And soothed his sorrow with the strain!
Coronach
“She