Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/732

 LEIGH HUNT

O scaly, slippery, wet, swift, staring wights,

What is't ye do? What life lead? eh, dull goggles?

How do ye vary your vile days and nights? How pass your Sundays? Are ye still but joggles

In ceaseless wash? Still nought but gapes, and bites, And drinks, and stares, diversified with boggles?

A FISH ANSWERS

Amazing monster! that, for aught I know, With the first sight of thee didst make our race For ever stare ' O flat and shocking face,

Grimly divided from the breast below!

Thou that on dry land horribly dost go

With a split body and most ridiculous pace, Prong after prong, disgracer of all grace,

Long-useless-finned, haired, upright, unwct, slow'

breather of unbreathable, sword-sharp air, How canst exist? How bear thyself, thou dry

And dreary sloth? What particle canst share Of the only blessed life, the watery?

1 sometimes see of ye an actual fair

Go by' linked fin by fin' most odiously.

THE FISH TURNS INTO A MAN, AND THEN INTO A SPIRIT, AND AGAIN SPEAKS

Indulge thy smiling scorn, if smiling still, O man ' and loathe, but with a sort of love , For difference must its use by difference prove,

And, in sweet clang, the spheres with music fill.

One of the spirits am I, that at his will

Live in whate'er has life fish, eagle, dove No hate, no pride, beneath nought, nor above,

A visitor of the rounds of God's sweet skill.

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