THE TALE OF THE FISHES 



strained to repeat the old, old invitation, but couched 

 in verses of my own making : 



Come, gentle friend, and hie with me 



Through pastures violet-pied, 

 To wet the yellow May fly 



In the rude stream's foam-beat tide, 



Where broidered in azalea spray 



The thickets blush recluse, 

 And towers beside the queachy path 



The sky-dyed flower-de-luce. 



Come, float your lure o'er dusky pool, 

 Heart-clutched by surging hopes, 



Where melt in one a hundred springs 

 Sped from high-blooming slopes. 



A rise! a fish! How flit your looks 

 'Twixt certainty and doubt 



'Tis mine to watch your rod respond 

 To rush of steel-struck trout. 



And now among the fern he lies, 



A roseate blaze in green; 

 What brush may paint, what pen describe 



That symmetry and sheen. 



35 



