Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1898-06-12

!
State, copy of which / preserved l saw
\ in last Sundays Dispatch a request fol
its publication, and you said If some one
would send the lines you would comply
| with the request.
| / take pleasure in sending them TO you
Respectfully yours, III. b.
A FISH STORY.
| In the Chesapeake and her tribute
| streams,
Where broadening out to the bay they
come,
And the great fresh waters meet the
brine,
There swims a fish that Is called the
A FISH of wonderful beauty and force,
That bites like steel-trap and pulls like
q horse.
He is heavy Of girth at the dorsal fin
But tapering downward keen and thin;
Long as a salmon, if not SO stout,
And springy and swift as the mountain
trout:
For often at night, in sportive mood,
He comes TO the brim Of the moonlit
flood,
And losses a glittering curve aloft,
Like the silver bow Of the god; then soft
He splashes deliciously back in the spray,
And tremulous circles go spreading away
Down by the marge of the York's broad
stream
An old darby lived OF the ancient re-
gime;
His laugh was loud. though his lot was
low,
He loved his old master, and he hated
his hoe.
Small and meagre was this old Ned,
For many long winters had frosted his
head,
And bated his force and vigor;
But though his wool all white had be-
come,
And his face wrinkled up like wash
woman's thumb.
And his back was bent, he was thought
A remarkably hale old niger.
But he suffered he said, with constant
attack
OF misery in de head and pain In de
TIL his ole massa glib him his time to
hisseif"
And the toll-worn old bondsman was laid
on the shelf.
Though all philanthropists clearly can
see
The degrading effects of slavery.
1 can't help thinking that this old crea-
ture /.
Was a great advance on his African ma
ture
And straighter of shin and thinner of lip
Than his grandsire that came in the
Yankee ship
Albeit bent with weary toll
OF sixty years on a slave-trodden soil,
Untaught and thriftless, and feeble of
mind
His life was gentle. his heart was kind;
He lived in a house, he loved his wife,
He was higher far in his hope and his
life.
And nobler man, with his hoe in, his
hand,
Than an African Prince in his native
land.
For perhaps the most odious thing upon
Is an African Prince in the land of his
birth,
With his negative calf and his convex
shin,
Triangular teeth and his pungent skin;
SO bloated Of body and meagre of limb,
OF passions so fierce and of reason so
dim.
So cruel in war. and so torpid In peace.
SO strongly addicted to entrails and
So partial to beating by morning light
The wife who had shared his repose over
night:
downtrod
In his horrible rites Of his beastly god
With their bloody and loathsome and
hideous mystery
But that has nothing to do with the
Happy old Edward-his labor was done
With nothing to do but TO sit In the sun.
And free to follow his darling wish
OF playing his fiddle and catching his
fish.
He had earned his playtime with labor
And so. like the other Old Ned of the
song,
Gle laid down the shovel and the hoe.
And caught up the fiddle and the bow.
Now i cannot say
That his style of play
Would suit the salons Of the present DIV,
For the tours de force of the great Paga-
Have never found favor in old virginny.
lie never played tune that went slow,
For he perfectly scoFned an adagio
But with eyes half closed and time
beating toe,
His elbow squared and resinous bow.
Not going up high nor going down low.
But saving steadily just down the middle
He played by the rule
or the strictest school
or the old-fashioned. plantation Niger
And now il that fiddle is heard no more.
Nor the constructing laugh, nor the
dance OF yore,
When the rhythmlcal beat
OF hilarious feet.
Struck the happy hoe down." on the !
80 cabin floor:
But DESERVING those cabins in discomfort
And thinking II free to be incident,
They leave the fields OF the rice and the
And huddle In cities to die Of ,iiscase: |
II the Christian hymn forgotten should /
be
And idols be ral'sl by the great Pedee;
Or II misled by yillainous men.
TO enact the mad scenes OF Jamaica /
again
They fail as they must in the deadly |
assault
We only can say that It wasn't our fault |
For the South lid certainly try her best |
To rescue them from Inc philanthropist
In Il strife that shall redden the page OF /
history
But that has nothing to do with the Fish-
story.
To return--Old Ned went fishing one day, 1
And out on the blue,
In his dug-out canoe,
lie carried his fiddle along 10 play.
Long he fished with his incest art.
There came not nibble TO GLADDEN. his
heart.
So he tied his line to his ankle tight
To be ready TO haul IL a fish should bite. /
And seized his fiddle. SO sweet did he l
play
That the waves leaped up in laugh of
sprsv- !