From "The White Fish"

Of venison let Goldsmith so wittily sing,
A very fine haunch is a very fine thing;
And Burns, in his tuneful and exquisite way,
The charms of a smoking Scot's haggis display;
But 't is often much harder to eat than descant,
And a poet may praise what a poet may want.
Less question shall be with my muse of my dish,
Whilst her power I invoke in the praise of white fish:
So fine on a platter, so tempting a fry,
So rich in a broil, and so sweet in a pie,
That even before it the red trout must fail,
And that mighty bonne bouche of the land, beaver tail!
Its beauty and flavor no person can doubt,
If seen in the water, or tasted without;
And all the dispute that an epicure makes,
Of this king of lake fishes, this deer of the lakes,
Regards not its choiceness, to ponder or sup,
But the best mode of dressing and serving it up.
Now this is a point where good livers may differ,
As tastes become fixed, or opinions are stifler
The merchant, the lawyer, the cit, and the beau,
The proud and gustative, the poor and the low,
The gay habitant, the inquisitive tourist,
The chemic physician, the dinner crost jurist —
To these it is often a casual sweet,
As they dine by appointment, or taste as a treat;
Not so, or as mental or physical joy,
Comes the sight of this fish to the courier de bois;
That wild troubadour with his joy-loving crew,
Who sings as he paddles his birchen canoe,
And thinks all the hardships that fall to his lot,
Are richly made up at the platter and pot.
To him there's a charm neither feeble nor vague
In the mighty repast of the grande Ticameg;
And oft as he starves amid Canada's snows,
On dry leather lichens and bouton de rose,
He cheers up his spirits to think he shall still
Qfpoisson blanc bouillon once more have his fill
The muse might appeal to the science of books
To picture its ichthyological looks,
Show what is its family likeness or odds,
Compared with its cousins, the salmons and cods;
Tell where it approximates, point where it fails,
By counting its fins, or dissecting its scales;
Or dwell on its habits, migrations, and changes —
The modes of its capture, its cycles and ranges:
But let me forbear — 'tis the fault of a song,
A tale, or a book, if too learned or long.
Thus ends my discussion. More would you, I pray,
Ask Mitchell, or Harlan, Lesieur, or De Kay.