BY JAMES K. PAULDING.
Drink, drink, whom shall we drink?
A friend or a mistress? Come let me think.
To those who are absent, or those who are here?
To the dead that we lov'd, or the living still dear?
Alas! when I look, I find none of the last,
The present is barren, let's drink to the past.
Come! here's to the girl with the voice sweet and low,
The eye all of fire and the bosom of snow,
Who erewhile in the days of my youth that are fled,
Once slept in my bosom, and pillow'd my head!
Would you know where to find such a delicate prize?
Go seek in yon church-yard, for there she lies.
And here's to the friend, the one friend of my youth,
With a head full of genius, a heart full of truth,
Who travell'd with me in the sunshine of life,
And stuck to my side in its sorrow and strife!
Would you know where to find a blessing so rare?
Go drag the lone sea, you may find him there.
And here's to a brace of twin cherubs of mine,
With hearts like their mother's, as pure as this wine,
Who came but to see the first act of the play,
Grew tir'd of the scene, and so both went away.
Would you know where this brace of bright cherubs have hied?
Go seek them in Heaven, for there they abide.
A bumper, my boys! to a gray-headed pair,
Who watch'd o'er my childhood with tenderest care,
God bless them, and keep them, and may they look down
On the head of their son, without tear, sigh or frown!
Would you know whom I drink to—go seek midst the dead,
You will find both their names on the stone at their head.
And here's—but alas! the good wine is no more,
The bottle is emptied of all its bright store;
Like those we have toasted, its spirit is fled,
And nothing is left of the light that it shed.
Then, a bumper of tears, boys! the banquet here ends,
With a health to our dead, since we've no living friends.
PISCATORY REMINISCENCES.
“Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them,” and so it is with angling. Some are born fishermen, some acquire the art, and it is thrust upon some by necessity. I read myself into it. My first penchant for angling was created by that prince of good fellows and good fishermen, Izaak Walton. I well remember one sunny spring morning, while reclining indolently in my little piazza with the “complete angler” open before me, I was suddenly smitten with a love for the “cool shaded stream” and the exercise of the angling rod. What a happy time of it hath the fisherman, thought I. How quietly his life passeth away; his spirits are always unruffled, and his bosom unknown to the cares that harass the rest of mankind. Here am I, always excited or depressed, and eternally ruminating upon dollars and cents, without ever allowing myself time to breathe the pure air of heaven in peace. I will turn fisherman, quoth I to myself, and immediately proceeded to purchase a rod and tackle just such as is recommended in the “complete angler,” mentally repeating all the while, one of honest old Izaak's wishes.
“I in these flowery meads would be,
These chrystal streams should solace me,
To whose harmonious babbling noise,
I with my angle would rejoice.”
Duly accoutred according to the directions of master Izaak, I wended my way with a light heart and impatient step, to the slippery banks of old Neuse, chasing and catching grasshoppers for bait, as I passed through a meadow that lay in my way. When arrived at the river I ensconced myself “secretly behind a tree,” fastened a grasshopper on my hook, and let it down to the water “as softly as a snail moves,” nothing doubting that I should soon draw forth a chub of the first water. There I sat with all the patience recommended by the “complete angler,” for two good long hours, expecting every moment to see the writhing grasshopper taken down by some monster of a chub. But nothing disturbed the poor fellow's kicking, except an impudent dragon fly that alighted on him, and sat there, floating lazily on the water and basking his bright wings in the warm sun, very prejudicially, as I thought, to Mr. Walton's manner of fishing. About this time I began to have some doubts as to the practice of master Izaak's rules for chub fishing in our uncivilized streams, and was pretty well cured of my fishing mania. I must say, though in justice to my preceptor, that I lacked one essential qualification for a fisherman—devotion, though I swore not an oath, sorely tempted as I was. This was doubtless the reason of my bad luck. After seeing the poor grasshopper make his last effort to get loose, without the least interruption from a chub, I despaired of ever being an angler, and “drew up stakes” to make for home, consoling myself with the reflection that “angling is like poetry—men are born to it.” As I trudged leisurely along I could not help thinking that I had been vastly more taken with the oddities and eccentricities of the devout old fisherman, than with the practice of his art in these unromantic regions, and inwardly assented to Swift's definition of angling—“a stick and a string, with a fool at one end and a worm at the other.” Ever since that day, I have been pointed at as the man that fished by the book, much to the gratification of my rustic neighbors, and mortification of myself.