There's nothing here; the water is too quiet;
You need a pool with rapids flowing by it:
Plenty of rush and motion, heave and roar.
To turn their thoughts from things upon the shore;
The day's too calm—I told you that before.
Just mind your line! I tell you that he's there.
I saw him spring up ten feet in the air—
Twelve pounder, if an ounce! Great Mackinaw!
Look! Quick! He's on! The "doctor" in his jaw......
Snapped! Gone! You big fool: worse than any fool!
What did you think to find here in this pool—
A minnow or a shiner—that you tried
With such a jerk to land him on the side
Of this high bank? That was a salmon—fool!
The biggest one that swam within this pool;
The one I saw that jumped twelve feet—not lower;
Would tip the scales at fourteen pounds or more.
Lost—near that rock that's got the log upon it,
Gone—with the leader and the "doctor" on it.
III
OVERHEARD IN A COVE
(The Old Salt Talks Back)
Swiles=seals.
Quintal=cwt.
THE SCHOLAR (recovering from heroic seizures)
Existence in this little town I find
Much too constricted for an ample mind;
Unheeded on these vain and deafening shores
Might Wisdom cry aloud her precious stores—
Wisdom for whom the Universe unseen
An illustrated page has ever been;
Who but initiates may understand
The forms and pressures of her amorous hand!
Her thoughts that wander through Eternity
Would perish here beside this muddy sea,
For no divine afflatus ever reaches
The men who dry their fish upon these beaches.
THE SALT.
Your poor old dad and granddad, long since dead—
God rest their weary souls—were born and bred
Upon this shore, as fine God-fearin' sort
As ever brought a leaky ship to port.
They never put up any braggin' claims
To learnin'—couldn't more than write their names,
And yet, no dealer born could take 'em in,
In things of common sense, like figurin'
Accounts, or show them any solid reason
Why number one prime cod might any season
Drop in price, while the fish remained as good
As ever, and a quintal always stood
A quintal; and there never was a strait
Or gulf or cape they couldn't navigate;
And fair or foul it made no difference.
They had no learnin', but the chunk of sense
The Good Lord gave 'em for their calculation,
While other men who learned their navigation
From books, got drowned; so you for all your letters
Have got no call for sneerin' at your betters.