130 FLY FISHING 



the day that I am remembering now is a fine April 

 day one of the very best. April is not a warm 

 month, but it has some warm days, and if an 

 angler, who cannot fish all through the month, 

 happens to choose these days for fishing, he 

 ought to count himself a fortunate man. Such 

 days may come at any time of the month, 

 in the beginning, middle, or end, but in the 

 north, at any rate before quite the end of 

 April, trees will still be brown and bare. That 

 does not matter. There will be a spirit in the 

 air, an appeal, a promise, a prophecy, to make 

 a man's heart leap up within him. There is 

 a feeling of rising sap and reviving life. It is 

 as if by some great effort of sympathy, a new 

 sense had been discovered within us, such as has 

 been imagined for fairies. 



'* Fairy ears a-listening, 

 Hear the buds sprout in the spring, 

 And for music to their dance 

 Hear the hedgerows wake from trance ; 

 Sap that trembles into buds, 

 Sending little rhythmic floods 

 Of fairy sound in fairy ears. 

 Thus all beauty that appears 

 Has birth as sound to finer sense 

 And lighter clad intelligence." 



