by Edmund W. Gosse.
Originally published in Longman's Magazine (Longmans, Green & Co.) vol.1 #5 (Mar 1883).
Ah! what an azure day!
Beneath the granite gray
The sulky ferox lay
And waved a fin;
Above his surly head
The amber river sped,
Shrunk in its summer bed,
Limpid and thin.
We heard the eddies lisp;
Deep in the heather crisp
We lay to watch Canisp
And Suilven blue;
Between their crags, behold,
A sheet of polished gold,
Where Fewn drew fold by fold
Her waters through.
'Hopeless the gray fly's wiles!
Our dusky ferox smiles;
We have trudged for miles and miles
In vain, in vain;
Better the storm that fills
The thunder-coloured rills,
Better the shrouded hills
And drifts of rain!'
But 'No! ah! no!' I cried;
'This lovely mountain-side,
In faintest purple dyed
And golden gray,
Will live in vision still
When nerves forget to thrill,
When hands have lost the skill
To play and slay!'
But still he watched the sky
With discontented eye,
For never a cloud was nigh,
Nor stormy flag;
Noon fell to afternoon,
Till, like a change of tune,
The delicate virgin moon
Stepped from the crag.
So, through that sleepy weather,
Our rods and we together
Lay on the springing heather,
Assuaged at last,
And now, through memory's haze,
Best of our fishing days
Seems just that cloudless blaze,
With never a cast.