Address to Certain Gold Fishes

Restless forms of living light
Quivering on your lucid wings,
Cheating still the curious sight
With a thousand shadowings ; —
Various as the tints of even,
Gorgeous as the hues of heaven,
Reflected on your native streams
In flitting, flashing, billowy gleams !

Harmless warriors, clad in mail
Of silver breastplate, golden scale ; —
Mail of Nature's own bestowing,
With peaceful radiance mildly glowing,
Fleet are ye, as fleetest galley
Or pirate rover sent from Sallee ;
Keener than the Tartar's arrow,
Sport ye in your sea so narrow.

Was the sun himself your sire ?
Were ye born of vital fire ?
Or of the shade of golden flowers,
Such as we fetch from eastern bowers,
To mock this murky clime of ours ?
Upwards, downwards, now ye glance,
Weaving many a mazy dance ;
Seeming still to grow in size
When ye would elude our eyes.
Pretty creatures ! we might deem
Ye were happy as ye seem, —

As gay, as gamesome, and as blithe,
As light, as loving, and as lithe,
As gladly earnest in your play,
As when ye gleam'd in far Cathay ;
And yet, since on this hapless earth
There's small sincerity in mirth,
And laughter oft is but an art
To drown the outcry of the heart ;
It may be, that your ceaseless gambols,
Your wheelings, dartings, divings, rambles,

Your restless roving round and round
The circuit of your crystal bound, —
Is but the task of weary pain,
An endless labour, dull and vain ;
And while your forms are gaily shining,
Your little lives are inly pining !
Nay ! but still I fain would dream
That ye are happy as ye seem,
Deck'd in Oriental pride,
By homely British fire-side.