The Fly is Up!
Source: The Stone Fiddle by Paddy Tunney
Location: New Edition, page 174 / 175 (Poem)
A ploughman pauses in the loam,
His team of horses cease to till.
He sees the fleck of flying foam
And dream-drifts, dapping down the drill.
A railwayman lets by a train,
Then he leans acorss the stile and chats,
A ‘Bubble’ bobbing in his brain,
His mind a maze of old, spent gnats.
For look! along Lough Erne’s shore
Old hawthorns in the christening shawls
Do beckon to the idle oar,
And sun that squints through cloudy squalls.
Round stones and rocks and stunted trees,
The hunt for new-hatched fly begins.
And dappers down upon their knees,
Do penance for their tall-tale sins.
The brown boat and its crew of three,
Are nosing from the point away.
The eager oars dip fast and free,
Then slow, she broad-sides up the bay.
Where spindrift seethes with mayfly sap,
A big on wallows like a whale.
He rises to the stern dap,
And takes it in a head-and-tail.
“I’m him, he’s a mighty trout!”
The rod all a hoop, the racing reel
Grasshopper-ticks the blowline out
To bring the haughty fish to heel.
The flush five-pounder’s race is run.
He lies gill-gasping on the floor,
While light spoke-wheeling from the sun
Throws silver on the bladed oar.
“I mind a day”, Big Thomas told,
“When heading down the second drift.
‘Twas rougher though and rather cold
With cloud that only showers shift.
“When sudden, night fell on that noon,
And inshore flew the frightened gull.
And every sound of living June
Was stifled in a leaden lull.
“We bent upon the oars and strove
With a trength of ten in every stroke
To reach some sheltered, wooden shore,
Before the fearful storm broke.
“Like crack of doom the thunder smote.
And lightning skivered down the sky.
Round rocking bay and reeling boat,
The main rake-shafted shoulder-high.
“Though fast we baled as fast she filled,
With blistered hands we wrought away.
When all at once the storm stilled,
But we were wet I needn’t say!”
“You’re in a fish! now hold him tight!”
“What weight?” “I’d say four punds a-half,
Or maybe more, he’s full of fight.
Throw down the net and grab that gaff!”