Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18.djvu/56

48 I see him trace the wayward brook

Amid the forest mysteries,

Where at themselves shy aspens look,

Or where, with many a gurgling crook,

It croons its woodland histories.

I see leaf-shade and sun-fleck lend

Their tremulous, sweet vicissitude

To smooth, dark pool, to crinkling bend,—

(O, stew him, Ann, as 't were your friend,

With amorous solicitude!)

I see him step with caution due,

Soft as if shod with moccasins,

Grave as in church,—and who plies you,

Sweet craft, is safe as in a pew

From all our common stock o' sins.

The unerring fly I see him cast,

That as a rose-leaf falls as soft,—

A flash! a whirl! he has him fast!

We tyros,—how that struggle last

Confuses and appalls us oft!

Unfluttered he; calm as the sky

Looks on our tragicomedies,

This way and that he lets him fly,

A sunbeam-shuttle, then to die

Lands him with cool aplomb, at ease.

The friend who gave our board such gust,—

Life's care, may he o'erstep it half,

And when Death hooks him, as he must,

He'll do it featly, as I trust,

And J. H. write his epitaph!

O, born beneath the Fishes' sign,

Of constellations happiest,

May he somewhere with Walton dine,

May Horace send him Massic wine,

And Burns Scotch drink,—the nappiest!

And when they come his deeds to weigh,

And how he used the talents his,

One trout-scale in the scales he'll lay,

(If trout had scales,) and 't will outsway

The wrong side of the balances.