Page:Natural History, Fishes.djvu/65

Rh hear the twittering of the water-birds, who, alarmed at your approach, rapidly hide themselves beneath the flowers and leaves of the water-lily; and, as the season advances, to find all these objects changed for others of the same kind, but better and brighter, till the Swallow and the Trout contend, as it were, for the gaudy May-fly, and till, in pursuing your amusement in the calm and balmy evening, you are serenaded by the songs of the cheerful Thrush and melodious Nightingale, performing the offices of paternal love, in thickets ornamented with the rose and woodbine."

Merry in the greenwood is the note of horn and hound, And dull must be the heart of him that leaps not to their sound; Merry from the stubble whirrs the partridge on her wing, And blithely doth the hare from her shady cover spring: But merrier than horn or hound, or stubble's rapid pride, Is the sport, that we court, by the gentle river side. Our art can tell the insect tribe that every month doth bring, And with a curious wile we know to mock its gauzy wing; We know what breeze will bid the Trout through the curling waters leap, And we can surely win him from shallow or from deep; For every cunning fish can we a cunning bait provide, In the sport, that we court, by the gentle river side. Where may we find the music like the music of the stream? What diamond like the glances of its ever-changing gleam? What couch so soft as mossy banks, where through the noontide hours Our dreamy heads are pillowed on a hundred simple flowers? While through the crystal stream beneath Ave mark the fishes glide, To the sport, that we court, by the gentle river side. For us the lark with upland voice the early sun doth greet; And the nightingale from shadowy boughs her vesper hymn repeat; For us the pattering shower on the meadow doth descend; And for us the flitting clouds with the sudden sunbeams blend: All beauty, joy, and harmony, from morn to eventide, Bless the sport, that we court, by the gentle river side.