Gay little fishes with painted scales, Gossamer fins and chiffon tails, Spattered with jewel dust, stained with dyes, Gems of jade and jet for eyes. Striped with orange and smeared with blue, Dipped in the rainbow's every hue. Little ones, yellow as buttercups, Big ones, ugly as gutter-pups, Fat ones, bloated and marked like toads, Squatted by submarine forest roads. Fishes gilded with guinea-gold, Shaped like mythical beasts of old, Some are enamelled like cloisonne, Lacquered and penciled with colors gay. 'Broidered and traced like a Persian shawl. Fishes that swim and fishes that crawl, Splotched and daubed in a cubist scheme, Some are born of a mad man's dream. Fishes with whiskers and fishes with horns Just like the fabulous unicorn's. Colors that burn like a funeral pyre, Colors as pale as a moonstone's fire, Ochre and amethyst, ultramarine, Amber, umber and macaw green, Fragments of fancy, living a day, Going their curious deep-sea way. Gay little fishes with painted scales Long may you wave your chiffon tails. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TO MY CHILDREN: 3 by DOLLIE CAROLINE MAITLAND RADFORD THE WIND SUFFERS by LAURA RIDING BEAUTIFUL SNOW by JOHN WHITAKER WATSON THE SAILOR'S WIFE by JEAN ADAMS ODES: BOOK 2: ODE 6. TO WILLIAM HALL, ESQ., WITH THE WORKS OF CHAULIEU by MARK AKENSIDE PEARLS OF THE FAITH: 34. AL-'AZIZ by EDWIN ARNOLD SONNET TO W-- P-- by BERNARD BARTON |