Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, FISHERMAN JOB, by JAMES ROANN REED


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

FISHERMAN JOB, by                    
First Line: Well, young'un, you're mighty smooth spoken, an' it all may
Last Line: An' if such things all happen by luck, why, I hope it'll always hold on.
Subject(s): Fish & Fishing


WELL, young 'un, you're mighty smooth spoken, an' it all may be as you say,
That God never interferes with us, but lets each one go on his own way;
But when heaven has silvered your locks with the snows of some eighty odd year -
-
As it has mine, an' always in marcy -- you'll regret this wild fancy, I fear.

Just let me spin ye a yarn, sir, as happened a long time agone
To me, an' if such is all luck, why, I hope it'll always hold on;
It's now nearly threescore summers since this incident happened to me, --
Just after I'd married my wife, an' settled down here by the sea.

For I was a fisherman born, sir, lovin' always the wild waves to ride;
They're the type of my life, an' I'm thinkin' that it's now near the ebb o' the
tide.
There were three of us then as were partners in the trimmest an' snug little
boat
As ever was true to her colors, just a bright little "Sunbeam" afloat.

We had had a long run o' good luck, sir; wi' the weather as fair as could be,
An' the morrow were goin' again, when the gray light first dawned on the sea.
But before I was fairly turned out, it seemed as I heard something say,
"There's breakers ahead o' ye, Job; don't go on the sea, lad, to-day!"

At first I felt kind o' scared like, but I thought 't was all fancy, you see,
So I took a good look at the sky; 't was as clear and as bright as could be.
But it still seemed to whisper, "Beware!" an' the breeze crept by soughin' an'
slow,
An' a voice, like a wail for the dead, with each gust seemed to murmur, "Don't
go!"

Then I got kind o' nettled to think that my narves should sarve me that way;
An' I says to myself, "You're an ass, Job, but you'll go for all that, lad, this
day!"
So I kissed wife a hasty good-by, an' set off a-hummin'a song,
Till the path took a turn by that cliff at whose foot the sand stretches along.

Then what happened I never could tell; but the first I remember, I know,
The cliff were a frownin' above me, an' I, stunned and bruised, down below,
An' my wife kneelin' there by my side, an' lookin' as frightened as if
I were dead. Says she, "Job, were ye crazy? Ye walked right straight off of
the cliff!"

I didn't say much; an', of course, my partners went that day alone;
An' I lay on my bed kind o' happy to find, after all, I'd not gone.
But the strangest of all is yet comin'; for that mornin', as fair as could be,
Was followed ere noon by a storm as was fairly terrific to see.

We waited in agony, knowin' such a sea the boat could not outride;
An' were thankful when even the bodies were laid at our feet by the tide.
It's no use in askin' my fate, if that mornin' I only had gone;
An' if such things all happen by luck, why, I hope it'll always hold on.





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