Hackle and Doctor and Montreal,
Bend to your cast that a king may die.

Armed with a gaff and a clicking reel,
High jack-boots and an empty creel,
A yard of gut, a split bamboo,
Beginner's luck and a fisherman's zeal.

Over the hills at the rise of day,
Through a sea of mist when the world is grey
I hie me down to the river's bend,
Where the shadows gloom and the ripples play.

Then all the length of an afternoon,
The light reel sings to a thrilling tune,
Till the basket sags with the speckled trout,
And I wander home by an April moon.




The Berry Pickers

When summer winds like scented waves bear fluffy flakes
of cruising seeds,
Above the stems of tawny grass and pale white wreaths of flowered weeds,
And berries splash their scarlet stains across the dipping hills of sun,
Their laughter lifts like silver bells and tinkling echoes sweetly run.

Their faces far below the crests of rippling gold and shadowed green,