HERE is the basket; I bring it home to you. There are no great fish in it. But perhaps there may be one or two little ones which will be to your taste. And there are a few shining pebbles from the bed of the brook, and ferns from the cool, green woods, and wild flowers from the places that you remember. I would fain to console you, if I could, for the hardship of having married an angler; a man who relapses in to his mania with the return of every spring, and never sees a little river without wishing to fish in it. But after all we have good times together as we have followed the stream of life towards the sea. And we have passed through dark days without losing heart, because we were comrades. So let this poem tell you one thing that is certain. In all the life of your fisherman the best piece of luck is just YOU.

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