Eclectic Rhapsodics: To the Immortal Memory of the Halibut

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To the Immortal Memory of the Halibut (1:47)

To the Immortal Memory of the Halibut

on Which I Dined This Day

[Written in a letter to Unwin April 25, 1784. Published by

Johnson, 1824.]

Where hast thou floated, in what seas pursued

Thy pastime? when wast thou an egg new-spawn'd,

Lost in th' immensity of ocean's waste?

Roar as they might, the overbearing winds

That rock'd the deep, thy cradle, thou wast safe—

And in thy minikin and embryo state,

Attach'd to the firm leaf of some salt weed,

Didst outlive tempests, such as wrung and rack'd

The joints of many a stout and gallant bark,

And whelm'd them in the unexplor'd abyss.

Indebted to no magnet and no chart,

Nor under guidance of the polar fire,

Thou wast a voyager on many coasts,

Grazing at large in meadows submarine,

Where flat Batavia just emerging peeps

Above the brine,—where Caledonia's rocks

Beat back the surge,—and where Hibernia shoots

Her wondrous causeway far into the main.

—Wherever thou hast fed, thou little thought'st,

And I not more, that I should feed on thee.

Peace therefore, and good health, and much good fish,

To him who sent thee! and success, as oft

As it descends into the billowy gulph,

To the same drag that caught thee!—Fare thee well!

Thy lot thy brethern of the slimy fin

Would envy, could they know that thou wast doom'd

To feed a bard, and to be prais'd in verse.