The Bloodless Sportsman

From The Sun, June 28, 1914. By Henry Kelman.

I go a-gunning, but take no gun;
    I fish without a pole;
And I bag good game and catch such fish
    As suit a sportsman’s soul.

For the choicest game that the forest holds,
    And the best fish of the brook
Are never brought down by a rifle shot,
    And are never caught with a hook.

I bob for fish by the forest brook,
    I hunt for game in the trees.
For bigger birds than wing the air
    Or fish than swim the seas.

A rodless Walton of the brooks,
    A bloodless sportsman I—
I hunt for the thoughts that throng the woods,
    The dreams that haunt the sky.

The woods were made for the hunters of dreams,
    The brooks for the fishers of song;
To the hunters who hunt for the gunless game
    The streams and the woods belong.

There are thoughts that moan from the soul of the pine,
    And thoughts in a flower bell curled;
And the thoughts that are blown with the scent of the fern
    Are as new and as old as the world.