THE TALE OF THE FISHES 



And O my God ! I cry, as I along 



The woodland ways mid vernal bloom and song 



That ties like this must break, that earth must lose 

 Such lives so gentle, chivalrous, and strong. 



Yet sweet the memories of that absent friend 

 Absent, not lost, Oh ! who may comprehend 



Those flashes of his presence at the stream 

 Dimpled by trout where feathery brackens bend. 



The man who gives his softer hours to angling as 

 I have pictured it, who walks beneath the branch and 

 under the simpleness of the sky, impressionable by 

 supreme realities, receives cosmic vibrations impalpable 

 to the carnal touch, thinks thoughts that fade not with 

 the setting sun. He brings home to himself the divine 

 amenities of our gentle craft in which he finds the 

 alembic for jaded brain and woe-tyed heart. For he 

 is en rapport with the Soul of the Wild, that myster- 

 ious Presence which, to quote from "Tintern Abbey," 

 disturbs one with "the joy of elevated thoughts," 



*'A sense sublime 



Of something far more deeply interfused, 

 Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 

 And the round ocean and the living air, 



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