Fly-Fishing Poem by Martin Farquhar Tupper

Look, like a village queen of May, the stream
Dances her best before the holiday sun,
And still with musical laugh goes tripping on
Over those golden sands, which brighter gleam
To watch her pale-green kirtle flashing fleet
Above them, and her tinkling silver feet,
That ripple melodies : quick! - yon circling rise
In the calm refluence of this gay cascade
Mark'd an old trout, who shuns the sunny skies,
And, nightly prowler, loves the hazel shade:
Well thrown! - you hold him bravely, - off he speeds,
Now up, now down,- now madly darts about!
Mind, mind your line among those flowering reeds,-
How the rod bends! - and hail, thou noble trout.