From The San Francisco Call, May 4, 1913.
By Hazen Conklin.
All day long I sit a-dreaming
Of a brook, its waters gleaming
As it splashes, dances, races
On its way ‘mongst woodsy places;
Of a troutbrook, pooled and ready
For the hand that’s quick and steady.
Though my desk, in hopeless clutter
Calls me back to bread and butter
Work seems sordid, unromantic
Its insistences pedantic
And I sit a-dreaming, wishing:
Come on, Tom, let’s go a-fishing!
In my fancy I am wading
Where the arching trees are shading
Pools where fondly one surmises
One can coax those lighting “rises”
Overhung by rocks, moss-garnished
Under which, with truth unvarnished
One can swear the big trout darted
Just before the trout line parted.
Say! What is the call of duty
When compared to speckled beauty!
I can hear my line a-swishing:
Come on, Dick, let’s go a-fishing!
Oh! This beastly grind of working!
Can’t you feel the fever jerking
At your coat sleeve, coaxing, teasing
Saying: “Come, we’ll find appeasing
For the appetite within you,”
All the while that you continue
Adding figures, scribbling phrases
Threading stupid business mazes?
Rod and reel and flies and hamper
Right across each page they scamper.
Be a sport and stop your wishing:
Come on, Harry, let’s go FISHING!