There's a brook on the side of Greylock that used to be
full of trout,
But there's nothing there now but minnows; they say
it is all fished out.
I fished there many a Summer day some twenty years
ago,
And I never quit without getting a mess of a dozen or so.
There was a man, Dave Lilly, who lived on the North
Adams road,
And he spent all his time fishing, while his neighbors
reaped and sowed.
He was the luckiest fisherman in the Berkshire hills, I
think.
And when he didn't go fishing he'd sit in the tavern and
drink.
Well, Dave is dead and buried and nobody cares very
much;
They have no use in Greylock for drunkards and loafers
and such,
But I always liked Dave Lilly, he was pleasant as you
could wish,
He was shiftless and good-for-nothing, but he certainly
could fish.
The other night I was walking up the hill from Williamstown
And I came to the brook I mentioned, and I stopped
on the bridge and sat down.
I looked at the blackened water with its little flecks of
white,
And I heard it ripple and whisper in the still of the
Summer night.
And after I'd been there a minute it seemed to me I could
feel
The presence of someone near me, and I heard the hum
of a reel.
And the water was churned and broken, and something
was brought to land
By a twist and a flirt of a shadowy rod in a deft and
shadowy hand.
I scrambled down to the brookside and hunted all
about;
There wasn't a sign of a fisherman; there wasn't a sign of
a trout.
But I heard somebody chuckle behind the hollow oak
And I got a whiff of tobacco like Lilly used to smoke.
It's fifteen years, they tell me, since anyone fished that
brook;
And there's nothing in it but minnows that nibble the
bait off your hook.
But before the sun has risen and after the moon has set
I know that it's full of ghostly trout for Lilly's ghost to get.
I guess I'll go to the tavern and get a bottle of rye
And leave it down by the hollow oak, where Lilly's ghost went by.
I meant to go up on the hillside and try to find his grave
And put some flowers on it--but this will be better for Dave.