The Trout first under observation Had much too much imagination: Because he let his fancy rule him, It wasn't any trick to fool him. Some vari-colored bits of feather By crafty fingers tied together Appeared -- it really seems incredible -- To him appeared distinctly edible. And hence, by all his friends regretted, This hapless Trout was played and netted. A second Trout, devoid of vision, At pretty-pretties flung derision. His soul was mean, his brain was earthly, His body waxed unduly girthly. No gaudy flies, no fancy dishes, But grubs, said he, were food for fishes: Yet those that rush for grubs and win them See not the barbs that lie within them; And this low-minded Trout was fated To meet a hook adroitly baited. Our final Trout was too suspicious: Because he knew that @3men@1 are vicious, In every fly that hit the water He saw an instrument of slaughter, -- In every toothsome caterpillar A @3salmo-fontinalis@1-killer. So, like a veteran dyspeptic, At dinner-time a bitter skeptic, For fear of eating indiscreetly The creature starved himself completely. Which proves, I think, beyond a doubt, Whatever way you work it out, That life is mighty hard on Trout. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE WILDERNESS TRANSFORMED by PHILIP DODDRIDGE THE RIGHT MUST WIN by FREDERICK WILLIAM FABER BOSTON COMMON: 1869 by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES MAIDENHOOD by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW RING FROM THE RIM OF THE GLASS, BOYS by JOHN CLINTON ANTHONY TO HIS GRACE, GEORGE DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLAND by PHILIP AYRES |