Fly Fishing for Salmon. 7 



Caught 'neath the Fall, where, 'mid the whirling foam 

 O' the quick-darting Usk, he just had come. 



" 'Twas thus in brief : the treach'rous colour'd fly, 

 For a meal, guil'd his unprophetic eye ; 

 So catching at it, he himself was caught ; 

 Swallowing it down, this evil fate he wrought. 



" His only purpose being then to dine — 

 Lo ! to be swallow'd swiftly he was mine ; 

 Misled by his gay-painted fly astray, 

 Of angler's rod he is the welcome prey. 



" Benign retirement ! (Full reward to me 

 For all my life's thick-coming misery.) 

 How safe this salmon, and long years have seen, 

 If he content in the still pools had been. 



" But soon as for the thund'ring Fall he craves, 

 To bound and flash amidst its tossing waves. 

 He leaps to seize what seems a noble prize. 

 And gulps the hidden hook whereon he dies. 



" Often are little things the types of great ; 

 Look thee around, and with all this thou'lt meet : 

 The foaming fall the world is, and man the fish, 

 The plum'd hook, sin, guis'd in some lordly dish." 



Salmon, as is well known, make the most extra- 

 ordinary efforts to overcome obstacles in the way 

 to their spawning beds, and it is most interesting 

 to watch their perseverance and determination at 

 any great fall ; time after time will they throw 

 themselves out of the water, nothing daunted, until 

 at last, by some extra power put on as it were, a 



