136 By Stream and Sea. 



" Old Butcher is young : he can make a fly 

 With as steady a hand and as sure an eye 

 As though he were still in manhood's prime, 

 And never had known the ravage of time. 



" He will drink his glass and despoil a dish 

 With an appetite keen as any fish 

 That ever took grub from baited hook 

 When hunger its victim overtook. 



" He can spin a yarn, or a sermon preach, 

 Or on special occasions spout a speech : 

 He can fast or feast, like a monk of old, 

 Though he likes the latter much best I'm told. 



" In the summer time when the days are long, 

 He will rise with the lark at her matin song : 

 But never a day's too long for him 

 When wetting his line by the river's brim. 



" Yet on winter nights, when the weather's cold, 

 And fuel and victuals are scarce as gold, 

 He will dress his flies in his moorland cot, 

 And live on potatoes and murmur not. 



" He knows each pool of the streams about, 

 And every stone that conceals a trout'; 

 Some say that he knows all the fish as well, 

 Both where they were born and where they dwell. 



" To those who have wander'd in Baslow's vale, 

 Through Chatsworth's meadows and Darley Dale, 

 Or skirted the banks of the silvery Wye, 

 Where Haddon's grey towers rise steep and high ; 



" Or straying westward by Calver's weir, 

 To Hathersage, Hope, or Edale fair, 

 Where the Noe and the Derwent wind at will, 

 Beneath the shadow of great Win Hill ; 



