Though youth “turns spectre-thin and dies,” To mourn for youth we’re not inclined; We set our souls on salmon flies, We whistle where we once repined. Confound the woes of human-kind! By Heaven we’re “well deceived,” I wot; Who hum, contented or resigned, “Life’s more amusing than we thought”! ENVOY. _O nate mecum_, worn and lined Our faces show, but that is naught; Our hearts are young ’neath wrinkled rind: Life’s more amusing than we thought! THE LAST CAST. THE ANGLER’S APOLOGY. JUST one cast more! how many a year Beside how many a pool and stream, Beneath the falling leaves and sere, I’ve sighed, reeled up, and dreamed my dream! Dreamed of the sport since April first Her hands fulfilled of flowers and snow, Adown the pastoral valleys burst Where Ettrick and where Teviot flow. Dreamed of the singing showers that break, And sting the lochs, or near or far, And rouse the trout, and stir “the take” From Urigil to Lochinvar. Dreamed of the kind propitious sky O’er Ari Innes brooding grey; The sea trout, rushing at the fly, Breaks the black wave with sudden spray! * * * * * Brief are man’s days at best; perchance I waste my own, who have not seen The castled palaces of France Shine on the Loire in summer green. And clear and fleet Eurotas still, You tell me, laves his reedy shore, And flows beneath his fabled hill Where Dian drave the chase of yore. And “like a horse unbroken” yet The yellow stream with rush and foam, ’Neath tower, and bridge, and parapet, Girdles his ancient mistress, Rome! I may not see them, but I doubt If seen I’d find them half so fair As ripples of the rising trout That feed beneath the elms of Yair. Nay, Spring I’d meet by Tweed or Ail, And Summer by Loch Assynt’s deep, And Autumn in that lonely vale Where wedded Avons westward sweep, Or where, amid the empty fields, Among the bracken of the glen, Her yellow wreath October yields, To crown the crystal brows of Ken. Unseen, Eurotas, southward steal, Unknown, Alpheus, westward glide, You never heard the ringing reel, The music of the water side! Though Gods have walked your woods among, Though nymphs have fled your banks along; You speak not that familiar tongue Tweed murmurs like my cradle song. My cradle song,—nor other hymn I’d choose, nor gentler requiem dear Than Tweed’s, that through death’s twilight dim, Mourned in the latest Minstrel’s ear! TWILIGHT. SONNET. (AFTER RICHEPIN.) LIGHT has flown! Through the grey The wind’s way The sea’s moan Sound alone! For the day These repay And atone!