THE RED FISHERMAN.

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,
And the waves a soothing sound :

It was not an hour, nor a scene, for aught
But love and calm delight;

Yet the holy man had a cloud of thought
On his wrinkled brow that night.

He gazed on the river that gurgled by,
But he thought not of the reeds :

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,
He traced the windings of the shore.
Oh, beauteous is that river still,

As it winds by many a sloping hill,
And many a dim o'erarching grove,
And many a flat and sunny cove,
And terraced lawns, whose bright arcades
The honeysuckle sweetly shades,

And rocks, whose very crags seem bowers,
So gay they are with grass and flowers!

But the abbot was thinking of scenery,
About as much, in sooth,

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
Grew damp beneath his tread;

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 space of half a rood;

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 !"