THE RED FISHERMAN. Oh flesh, flesh, how art thou fishified! Romeo and Juliet. THE abbot arose, and closed his book, And donned his sandal shoon, And wandered forth, alone, to look Upon the summer moon : A starlight sky was o'er his head, A quiet breeze around; And the flowers a thrilling fragrance shed, It was not an hour, nor a scene, for aught Yet the holy man had a cloud of thought He gazed on the river that gurgled by, He clasped his gilded rosary, But he did not tell the beads; If he looked to the heaven, 'twas not to invoke The Spirit that dwelleth there; If he opened his lips, the words they spoke Had never the tone of prayer. A pious priest might the abbot seem, He had swayed the crosier well; But what was the theme of the abbot's dream, The abbot were loth to tell. Companionless, for a mile or more, As it winds by many a sloping hill, And rocks, whose very crags seem bowers, But the abbot was thinking of scenery, As a lover thinks of constancy, Or an advocate of truth. He did not mark how the skies in wrath Grew dark above his head; He did not mark how the mossy path And nearer he came, and still more near, To a pool, in whose recess The water had slept for many a year, Unchanged and motionless; From the river stream it spread away The surface had the hue of clay And the scent of human blood; The trees and the herbs that round it grew Were venomous and foul; And the birds that through the bushes flew Were the vulture and the owl; The water was as dark and rank As ever a Company pumped; And the perch, that was netted and laid on the bank, Grew rotten while it jumped : And bold was he who thither came At midnight, man or boy; For the place was cursed with an evil name, And that name was the "The Devil's Decoy !" |