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To
An Old Friend
The end draws near again, and very near,
The first few fluttered beech leaves fall and
gleam-
Light skirmishers that dog the dying year-
But still I see you down below the weir, a shadow in
the stream.
Here you have lurked since spring-in sportive
guise,
Rallied the meadows to young April's rout,
Here first I marked the marvel of your size,
Here wooed you with each fleeting season's flies-
O alderman of trout!
Here when the madcap cuckoo makes his mock
And rathe wild-rose blushed in earliest June,
The day the mayfly hatched above the lock-
You nearly had it, didn't you, old cock,
Save that you stopped too soon?
Here I have watched as the dawn spread high
Hoping in vain the prejudice or pique
That makes you--obviously--reject the fly
Would send you hurtling through the startled fry
To grab a proffered bleak!
Here likewise have my steps at eve been drawn
And, as the moon made way behind the wood,
(The same old moon that watched the hunting Faun)
I've found the lobworm garnered from the lawn
Did just as little good!
And now the end is near; we part a space
You to your mud and I to mine--in town;
May Easter find us at the trysting place
Where the dancing bubbles spin and race
To meet the first March Brown!
By Patrick
Chalmers
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