SPRING MEETING OF THE

OF ANGLERS,

Hail, Angling pleasure,

The heart's dearest treasure,

In musical measure

We make the hall ring;

Since life is fleeting,
From fate no retreating,
Enjoy, then, our meeting

To greet the new Spring.

Sure 'twould be treason,
Against sense and reason,
At this happy season

Our joy to restrain ;

For sorrows and sadness
Is nothing but madness,
When innocent gladness
Solicits the strain.

Wake the loud chorus,
Sport is before us,
Streamlets invite us

Their pleasures to sing;

Then join in repeating

Our wish for completing
The plan of our meeting

To hail the new Spring.

CLUB

SONG

The lassie by the streamlet side,
She was so sweet and fair,
That oft I took the rod aside,
To drive away my care.

With eye askance, I glisten'd by
Her dwelling, near the stream;
My tackle and my bonny fly,
But prov'd an empty dream.

The flow 'ry banks and rippling rill,
Whose music charms the ear;
No longer my desire could fill,
Since Jeanie prov'd so dear.

I vow'd each day no trout I'd kill,
Nor salmon tempt with fly;
Till my love, by the purling rill,
My merits should descry.

But ah, she look'd so shy and blate,
My heart was like to faint;
many hours she'd make me wait,
'Twould vex a very saint.

So

Down by the dell she'd slowly move,
With coyness in her looks,

As if the wayward path of love
Lay straight among the hooks.

When once I spied her come behind,
The rod I threw aside;

I swore, with honest heart and mind,
That she should be my bride.

"Bid me," I said, " and I will live
Thy worshipper to be ;

Or bid me love, and I will give
A loving heart to thee.

"A heart as warm, a heart as kind,

A heart as true and free,

As in the world's domain you'll find, That heart I'il give to thee.

"Bid that heart stay, and it will stay To honour thy decree; Or bid it languish quite away.

So shall it do for thee.

"Bid me despair, and I'll despair Under the cypress tree;

Or bid me die, and I will die,

E'en death-to die for thee.

“Thou art my life, my love, my heart, The very eyes of me;

And hast command of every part,

To live and die for thee.

"Deceptive fly shall ne'er be thrown,
From honour's path to wile;

Nor rankling seeds of sorrow sown,
Nor honest heart beguile."

MAY.

It was the charming month of May,
When all the flow'rs were fresh and gay,
One morning by the break of day,
The youthful angler rose.

From peaceful slumbers he awoke,
Girt on his basket, and he took
A ramble down the stream, to look
If in right angling trim.

The feather'd people you might see
Perch'd all around on every tree,
In sweetest notes of melody,

To hail the joyous youth.

X. Y., 1816.

THE OLD ANGLER.

My grandsire is an angler old,

Life's wheels move dull and slow,
His cheeks are wan and wrinkled deep,
His hair as white as snow.;

His eye is dimmed of all its fire,
His heart of all its glee,

And nought does he the live-long day,
But moan most piteously.

They say he's in his dotage now,

But I remember well,

When he to cousin Tom and me,
Would pleasant stories tell;
And as we clambered up his knee
He'd lay his pipe away,

And, by the hour, fish o'er again,
Scenes of his early days.

One story-it was our youthful pride

We begged he'd tell it still: How he with Rodger, side by side,

Caught salmon in the rill;

The leaps they made, the tugs they gave,

The springings up in air,

The stirring scenes which mark'd their fall—

In language choice and rare.