An Old-Timer

Here where the wayward stream
Is restful as a dream,
And where the banks o'erlook
A pool from out whose deeps
My pleased face upward peeps,
I cast my hook.

Silence and sunshine blent!--
A Sabbath-like content
Of wood and wave;--a free-
Hand landscape grandly wrought
Of Summer's brightest thought
And mastery.--

For here form, light and shade,
And color--all are laid
With skill so rarely fine,
The eye may even see
The ripple tremblingly
Lip at the line.

I mark the dragon-fly
Flit waveringly by
In ever-veering flight,
Till, in a hush profound,
I see him eddy round
The "cork," and--'light!

Ho! with the boy's faith then
Brimming my heart again,
And knowing, soon or late,
The "nibble" yet shall roll
Its thrills along the pole,
I--breathless--wait.