Fish Poems

Table of Contents

1. Gold Fish

   by Hilda Conkling

   Like a shot of gold
   Or an arrow darting
   With thin gold wings
   He swims . . .
   Now around . . . then straight
   Then a swish of tail . . .
   Then zigzag all along
   With a kind of stiff smile . . .
   In ponds or bowls
   He swims and stares
   Out of big popping eyes
   Of ebony . . .
   

2. When the Brook Trout Leaps

   by Anonymous

   
   

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   The slender dew-tipped grasses are trembling in the breeze,
   The east is blushing rosy red beneath the Sun's caress,
   The wild rose bends to kiss the stream—but only Nature sees,
   And the reed-harps play weird music just above the water cress.
   

   The quail is calling loudly where the tangled bushes grow,
   The startled frogs are diving, and the noisy blackcaress bird scolds.
   The stealthy rat is hunting where the deeper waters flow,
   And the bees are sipping honey that the wild plum's blossom holds.
   

   The air is overladen with the wild-flowers' fragrant scent'
   The morning star is fading' and the sharp-eyed night owl sleeps;
   Myriad birds are singing to the stream's accompaniment
   And the world is full of gladness—when the brook trout leaps.
   

3. One, Two, Three, Four, Five

   by Anonymous

   One, two, three, four, five,
   Once I caught a fish alive,
   Six, seven, eight, nine, ten,
   Then I let it go again.
   

   Why did you let it go?
   Because it bit my finger so.
   Which finger did it bite?
   This little finger on the right.
   

4. Heaven

   by Rupert Brooke

   
   

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   Fish (fly-replete, in depth of June,
   Dawdling away their wat'ry noon)
   Ponder deep wisdom, dark or clear,
   Each secret fishy hope or fear.
   Fish say, they have their Stream and Pond;
   But is there anything Beyond?
   This life cannot be All, they swear,
   For how unpleasant, if it were!
   One may not doubt that, somehow, Good
   Shall come of Water and of Mud;
   And, sure, the reverent eye must see
   A Purpose in Liquidity.
   We darkly know, by Faith we cry,
   The future is not Wholly Dry.
   Mud unto mud!—Death eddies near—
   Not here the appointed End, not here!
   But somewhere, beyond Space and Time,
   Is wetter water, slimier slime!
   And there (they trust) there swimmeth One
   Who swam ere rivers were begun,
   Immense, of fishy form and mind,
   Squamous, omnipotent, and kind;
   And under that Almighty Fin,
   The littlest fish may enter in.
   Oh! never fly conceals a hook,
   Fish say, in the Eternal Brook,
   But more than mundane weeds are there,
   And mud, celestially fair;
   Fat caterpillars drift around,
   And Paradisal grubs are found;
   Unfading moths, immortal flies,
   And the worm that never dies.
   And in that Heaven of all their wish,
   There shall be no more land, say fish.
   

5. Fishes in the Brook

   by Friedrich Fröbel

   Merrily in the brooklet clear,
   Swim the bright fishes far and near,
   Now darting, now floating, ever they go,
   Some of them straight, some bent like a bow.
   

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