Classic and Contemporary Poetry
TO MR JOHN BARTLETT, WHO HAD SENT ME A SEVEN-POUND TROUT, by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Fit for an abbot of theleme Last Line: The wrong side of the balances. Subject(s): Trout | ||||||||
FIT for an Abbot of Theleme, For the whole Cardinals' College, or The Pope himself to see in dream Before his lenten vision gleam, He lies there, the sogdologer! His precious flanks with stars besprent, Worthy to swim in Castaly! The friend by whom such gifts are sent, For him shall bumpers full be spent, His health! be Luck his fast ally! I see him trace the wayward brook Amid the forest mysteries, Where at their shades shy aspens look, Or where, with many a gurgling crook, It croons its woodland histories. I see leaf-shade and sun-fleck lend Their tremulous, sweet vicissitude To smooth, dark pool, to crinkling bend, -- (O, stew him, Ann, as 't were your friend, With amorous solicitude!) I see him step with caution due, Soft as if shod with moccasins, Grave as in church, for who plies you, Sweet craft, is safe as in a pew From all our common stock o' sins. The unerring fly I see him cast, That as a rose-leaf falls as soft, A flash! a whirl! he has him fast! We tyros, how that struggle last Confuses and appalls us oft. Unfluttered he: calm as the sky Looks on our tragi-comedies, This way and that he lets him fly, A sunbeam-shuttle, then to die Lands him, with cool aplomb, at ease. The friend who gave our board such gust, Life's care may he o'erstep it half, And, when Death hooks him, as he must, He'll do it handsomely, I trust, And John H -- write his epitaph! O, born beneath the Fishes' sign, Of constellations happiest, May he somewhere with Walton dine, May Horace send him Massic wine, And Burns Scotch drink, the nappiest! And when they come his deeds to weigh, And how he used the talents his, One trout-scale in the scales he'll lay (If trout had scales), and 't will outsway The wrong side of the balances. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AT THE SAND CREEK BRIDGE by JAMES GALVIN THE TROUT; FOR BARRIE COOKE by JOHN MONTAGUE THE IDLER'S CALENDAR: APRIL. TROUT-FISHING by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT THE SPECKLED TROUT by MADISON JULIUS CAWEIN THE MYTH (A THAMES TROUT) by PATRICK REGINALD CHALMERS TO AN OLD FRIEND by PATRICK REGINALD CHALMERS ABOUT TROUT by ARTHUR GUITERMAN THE TROUT by THEOPHILE JULIUS HENRY MARZIALS AFTER THE BURIAL by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL |
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