fish

What fish feel,
birds feel, I don't know--
the year ending.


Translated by Robert Hass

My wedding-ring lies in a basket
as if at the bottom of a well.
Nothing will come to fish it back up
and onto my finger again.
       &nb sp;       &nbs p;    It lies
among keys to abandoned houses,
nails waiting to be needed and hammered
into some wall,
telephone numbers with no names attached,
idle paperclips.
       &nb sp;  It can't be given away
for fear of bringing ill-luck.
       &nb sp;  It can't be sold
for the marriage was good in its own

The tale of the Count our glad song shall record

Who had in this castle his dwelling,
Where now ye are feasting the new-married lord,

His grandson of whom we are telling.
The Count as Crusader had blazon'd his fame,
Through many a triumph exalted his name,
And when on his steed to his dwelling he came,

His castle still rear'd its proud head,
But servants and wealth had all fled.

'Tis true that thou, Count, hast return'd to thy home,

But matters are faring there ill.

I wait for the holiday crowd to clear the beach
before stepping onto the first wave.

Soon I am walking across the Atlantic
thinking about Spain,
checking for whales, waterspouts.
I feel the water holding up my shifting weight.
Tonight I will sleep on its rocking surface.

But for now I try to imagine what
this must look like to the fish below,
the bottoms of my feet appearing, disappearing.

ABOVE us hangs the jewelled night;
And how her restful cool caresses
Make us forget the weary sight
Of summer’s daily wildernesses!
O aching toil and hope deferred,
The night has made a promise to me;
She whispered, and a wonder stirred,
And still the joy is thrilling through me.
Smooth water, shadow deeply still,
I dare not move, you wait unsleeping
—You share the breathless hopes that fill
The watch my longing soul is keeping.
A fish is leaping in the bay;

One day, whiles that my daylie cares did sleepe,
My spirit, shaking off her earthly prison,
Began to enter into meditation deepe
Of things exceeding reach of common reason;
Such as this age, in which all good is geason,
And all that humble is and meane debaced,
Hath brought forth in her last declining season,
Griefe of good mindes, to see goodnesse disgraced.
On which when as my thought was throghly placed,
Vnto my eyes strange showes presented were,
Picturing that, which I in minde embraced,

Had I but plenty of money, money enough and to spare,
The house for me, no doubt, were a house in the city-square;
Ah, such a life, such a life, as one leads at the window there!

Something to see, by Bacchus, something to hear, at least!
There, the whole day long, one's life is a perfect feast;
While up at a villa one lives, I maintain it, no more than a beast.

Well now, look at our villa! stuck like the horn of a bull
Just on a mountain-edge as bare as the creature's skull,

The water is the fish's element;
Take her from thence, none can her death prevent;
And some have said, who have transgressors been,
As good not be, as to be kept from sin.

2.

The water is the fish's element:
Leave her but there, and she is well content.
So's he, who in the path of life doth plod,
Take all, says he, let me but have my God.

3.

The water is the fish's element,
Her sportings there to her are excellent;
So is God's service unto holy men,

Cat! who hast pass’d thy grand climacteric,
How many mice and rats hast in thy days
Destroy’d? How many tit bits stolen? Gaze
With those bright languid segments green, and prick
Those velvet ears - but pr’ythee do not stick
Thy latent talons in me - and upraise
Thy gentle mew - and tell me all thy frays,
Of fish and mice, and rats and tender chick.
Nay, look not down, nor lick thy dainty wrists -
For all thy wheezy asthma - and for all
Thy tail’s tip is nick’d off - and though the fists

Thou damn'd antipodes to common sense!
Thou foil to Flecknoe! Prithee tell from whence
Does all this mighty stock of dullness spring,
Which in such loads thou to the stage dost bring?
Is't all thy own, or hast thou from Snow Hill
Th'assistance of some ballad-making quill?
No, they fly higher yet; thy plays are such
I'd swear they were translated out of Dutch:
And who the devil was e'er yet so drunk
To own the volumes of Mynheer Van Dunk?
Fain would I know what diet thou dost keep,