Troutnut Forum > Fly Fishing Discussion > Fish Poems
| Martinlf | January 18th, 2008, 3:14 pm | |
| Palmyra PA Posts: 908 | I am considering teaching a course on the science and literature of fly fishing in the fall of 2008, using some basic entomology texts and some literary texts. I've pretty much settled on Nick Lyons' anthology for prose, but as far as I can tell, there are no books dedicated to poems about fishing. Readers of this forum will have noticed that I'm collecting these, but I'd appreciate any help from anyone who is aware of good poems treating the topic of fishing. I've already listed everything mentioned on this site, but if anyone knows of other poems, if they could PM or post the authors name, title of the poem, and where they found the poem (book title, date, publisher) I'd much appreciate it. The poems do not have to be about fly fishing. | |
| Louis Is it not an art to deceive a trout with an artificial fly? A trout! that is more sharp-sighted than any hawk . . . and more watchful and timorous than your high-mettled merlin is bold! --Izaak Walton The Compleat Angler | ||
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| Flybyknight | January 18th, 2008, 5:37 pm | |
| Milton, DE Posts: 65 | Louis, Now you did it. "Around the steel no tortur'd worm shall twine, No blood of living insect stain my line; Let me, less cruel, cast feather'd hook, With pliant rod athwart the pebbled brook, Silent along the mazy margin stray, And with fur-wrought fly delude the prey". John Gay, in Rural Sports, 1720 Dick | |
| Lightly on the dimpling eddy fling; the hypocritic fly's unruffled wing. Thomas Scott | ||
| Shawnny3 | January 18th, 2008, 6:12 pm | |
| Pleasant Gap, PA Posts: 541 | Nice idea, Louis. Dick, I like the poem. I must point out the humorous irony, though, in the author's claim that the 'feather'd hook' and 'fur-wrought fly' are less cruel. I'll bet the donors would beg to differ... -Shawn | |
| Jewelry-Quality Artistic Salmon Flies, by Shawn Davis www.davisflydesigns.com | ||
| Flybyknight | January 18th, 2008, 6:32 pm | |
| Milton, DE Posts: 65 | SEE "And ete the olde fisshe, and leve the yonge, Though't they moore towgh be uppon the tonge". Piers of Fullham, fifteenth century Now lest we forget the high brows among your pupils: La peche doit rester un sport et un plaisir, faute de quoi elle devient pire que le travail". Charles Ritz, in an interview with Bill Higgins And lest I be accused of the "H" word: "Fishing, if I a fisher may protest, Of pleasures is the sweetest, of sports the best, Of exercises the most excellent, Of recreations the most innocent, But now the sport is marred, and wott ye why? Fishes decrease, and fishers multiply". Thomas Bastard, in Chrestoleros, 1598 Drats, dinner bell. Dick | |
| Lightly on the dimpling eddy fling; the hypocritic fly's unruffled wing. Thomas Scott | ||
| Martinlf | January 18th, 2008, 6:55 pm | |
| Palmyra PA Posts: 908 | Thanks, Dick, I'm hoping you will resume after dinner. As a teacher of medieval and renaissance literature I find your selections particularly interesting. | |
| Louis Is it not an art to deceive a trout with an artificial fly? A trout! that is more sharp-sighted than any hawk . . . and more watchful and timorous than your high-mettled merlin is bold! --Izaak Walton The Compleat Angler | ||
| Shawnny3 | January 19th, 2008, 8:49 am | |
| Pleasant Gap, PA Posts: 541 | "La peche doit rester un sport et un plaisir, faute de quoi elle OK, I'm no French speaker to be sure, but being half Hispanic I should at least be able to take a reasonable shot: "The fish makes for pleasurable sport, even though he's a *#$@! to catch." Close? -Shawn P.S. By the way, French is really funny in direct translation. I was checking out a forum based in Quebec where a few guys were discussing my flies, and I had to use a translating site to understand their discussion. There were gems on there like, "While excavating on the fabric," which I can only assume means "While searching the web," and "I would be carried to believe," which, with the simple substitution of the word 'carried' for 'led', becomes quite funny. I love both French and the French. To say nothing of Canadians. | |
| Jewelry-Quality Artistic Salmon Flies, by Shawn Davis www.davisflydesigns.com | ||
| Flybyknight | January 19th, 2008, 10:08 am | |
| Milton, DE Posts: 65 | America the What? Ed Zern published this poem by Samuel A. Ward 1847-1903, in Field & Stream. You can fill in the music. "O beautiful for specious guys Who piously declare, "That's progress' price," as fact'ry stacks Spew poison in the air. America, America, Smog smears its grays on thee; We stain thy prime with soot and grime And strontium 90! O beautiful for strip-mine pit Where once the Laurel bloomed; For brooklets running sulphur-stained And rotten egg perfumed. America, America, On bureaucrats cry shame; For canyons dammed and us flim-flamm'd In Reclamation's name! O beautiful for scenery Black'd out by billboard's span;(spam would fit in here nicely) For nauseous stink of sew'rs we drink Where once oure rivers ran. America, America, What thieves thy people be, Who rob from earth their children's birth-Right, Nature's legacy. O beautiful for neon sign By big dam power lit; For carrion of countless cars On hillside charnel pit. America, America, Whom ev'ry gully robs; Thy landscape slopped with litter dropped By (lets face it) slobs! O beautiful for highways broad, With beer cans tightly hemm'd; For marshes drained and dollars gained And Water fowl condemn'd. America, America, God grant us sanity; With wealth we're blest, yet foul our nest And then chop down thee tree." Dick | |
| Lightly on the dimpling eddy fling; the hypocritic fly's unruffled wing. Thomas Scott | ||
| Flybyknight | January 19th, 2008, 10:31 am | |
| Milton, DE Posts: 65 | A Fisherman's Prayer I wish I could give proper credit to the poet, but he is unknown. I found it in a funeral parlor (which to my distress, seems to be becoming a more and more familiar venue. "IN LOVING MEMORY OF ___________# 191 A Fisherman's Prayer" God grant that I may fish until my dying day. And when it comes to my last cast, I then most humbly pray, When in the Lord's safe landing net, I'm peacefully asleep, That in His Mercy I be judged as big enough to keep. Dick | |
| Lightly on the dimpling eddy fling; the hypocritic fly's unruffled wing. Thomas Scott | ||
| Flybyknight | January 19th, 2008, 12:13 pm | |
| Milton, DE Posts: 65 | Louis Wrote: "As a teacher of medieval and renaissance literature I find your selections particularly interesting." Oh Louis, you drove me into the tombs of distant and forgotten memory to search for and come up with this lore: (which you probably already know by heart.) A Treatyse of Fysshynge Wyth An Angle: by Dame Juliana Berners 1496 "Then yf ye wyll be crafte yn angelyng ye muste furst lurne to mak yowr harness that ys to sey your rod your lynys of dy(uers) colors & your hokes after that ye must know how ye schall angel & yn wat places of the watur how depe & wat tyme of the daye for wat maner of fysche in wath wedur how many Impedimen(ts) ther ben yn anglyng and especially with wat bayt to euery dyuerse fysche yn yche moneth in the yer how ye schall make yowr baytes brede wher ye schall fynde them & how ye schall fynde them & how ye schall kepe them and for the most crafty thyng how ye schall make your hokes of steyl & of osmonde [Swedish steel] som for the to dub & som for the flote as ye schall her aftur all these ye schall fynd expressed openly to yowr ye." Pheww Dick | |
| Lightly on the dimpling eddy fling; the hypocritic fly's unruffled wing. Thomas Scott | ||
| Shawnny3 | January 20th, 2008, 8:38 pm | |
| Pleasant Gap, PA Posts: 541 | I love that last one, Dick. Perhaps I shouldn't be so heavy-handed with my students who spell phonetically (I had one misspell the word 'in' this year - probably just sounded it out wrong). I guess I knew English used to be different, but that's just nuts. Pretty cool. -Shawn | |
| Jewelry-Quality Artistic Salmon Flies, by Shawn Davis www.davisflydesigns.com | ||
| Martinlf | January 20th, 2008, 10:17 pm | |
| Palmyra PA Posts: 908 | Great stuff, guys, thanks. | |
| Louis Is it not an art to deceive a trout with an artificial fly? A trout! that is more sharp-sighted than any hawk . . . and more watchful and timorous than your high-mettled merlin is bold! --Izaak Walton The Compleat Angler | ||
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