THAT TROUT

I’VE watched that trout for days and days,
 I’ve tried him with all sorts of tackle;
With flies got up in various ways,
Red, blue, green, gray, and silver-hackle.

I’ve tempted him with angle-dogs,
And grubs, that must have been quite trying,
Thrown deftly in betwixt old logs,
Where, probably, he might be lying.

Sometimes I’ve had a vicious bite,
And as the silk was tautly running,
Have been convinced I had him, quite:
But ’twasn’t him: he was too cunning.

I’ve tried him, when the silver moon
Shone on my dew-bespangled trowsers,
With dartfish; but he was “too soon”—
Though, sooth to say, I caught some rousers;

And sadly viewed the ones I caught,
They loomed so small and seemed so poor,
’Twas finding pebbles where one sought
A gem of price—a Kohinoor.

I’ve often weighed him (with my eyes),
As he with most prodigious flounces
Rose to the surface after flies.
(He weighs four pounds and seven ounces.)

I tried him—Heaven absolve my soul—
With some outlandish, heathenish gearing—
A pronged machine stuck on a pole—
A process that the boys call spearing.

I jabbed it at his dorsal fin
Six feet beneath the crystal water—
’Twas all too short. I tumbled in,
And got half drowned—just as I’d orter.

Adieu, O trout of marvelous size,
Thou piscatorial speckled wonder.
Bright be the waters where you rise,
And green the banks you cuddle under.