Volume 146 — TO SEPTIMIUS ON TROUT.

To-day the young year in her sleep was stirring In woods and hearts of men; To-night 'tis sharper and the cold's recurring— Septimius, what then? Draw in and talk of politics and speeches To the old tiresome tune? Not we who saw pale sunshine on the beeches Only this afternoon; Who saw the snowdrops frail in woodland hollows, Who heard the building rooks Herald a time of flowers and skimming swallows, Green fields and brawling brooks! Nay, pledge anew, Septimius, such gages Of May-time's radiant rout Till, as becometh fishermen and sages, Our talk shall trend to trout— To little trout, to little streams that scurry Where the hill curlews cry, O'er which the neophyte may splash and flurry, Yet heap his basket high; To careful trout, for pundits skilled and wary, That use upon the chalk, Plump and recondite, dubious and chary— On such shall turn our talk. Then since we're of the Faithful, vowed to follow Old Thames's placid flow, We'll breathe of his leviathans that wallow, In bated tones and low; And I mayhap shall say a word in token Of one prodigious friend Who lurks—excuse a statement more outspoken— 'Twixt Marlow and Bourne End; While you, Septimius, set memory roaming To That which smashed amain Your trace of proof, and hint how some soft gloaming He yet shall come again. So shall we sit this firelit hour, contriving Blue halcyon days that hold The lisp of streams in crisping reed-beds striving, And meadows spun with gold.