The Real Thing

It’s well enough to go to Maine

     An’ take your rod an’ line;

The Adirondacks offer up

     Some salmon fishing fine.

An’ men will come an’ men will go

     An’ fish an’ fish away;

An’ run their patent tackle out

     The livelong summer day.

An’ some catch more an’ some catch less,

     An’ some catch less than that.

Aye, some get nary bite at all

     Except beneath the hat.

If their imagination’s strong,

     An’ bait is in its prime,

They’ll tell you when the trip is o’er,

     They’ve had a bully time.

I take my ol’ pole an’ go

     Down the Crick each day,

An’ shove amongst the lily pads

     Down where the pickerel lay.

I slap my bait amongst the weeds,

     A perch’s belly fine

An’ by an’ by there comes a swish

     An’ then a tautened line.

I give my pole a mighty swing

     An’ to my boat there flies

A yellow, gleamin’ pickerel

     Of most temenjous size.

It’s well enough to go to Maine,

     Or Adirondacks fine,

But I will take a good cane pole

     An’ “Lizzard Crick” for mine.

July 19, ‘07

                                                      Rewritten as ‘Real Fishin’, 4 22, 1908