Voices from the Past: Charles A. Singler (1914)

Bill Sonnett sent this in to me and thought it was delightful. It comes from Outer's Book March, 1914.

Boast of the Black Bass

by Charles A. Singler

I am the Bass, the big black bass!
The king of swamp and cool morass!
The city sends it hordes of men
To drag me from the reed-swept den.

With silken line and weedless hook
They strive to lure me from my nook.
A chunk of pork with crimson flag,
Or hook transfixed through scented bag.

Perhaps a dummy fish they take,
And then proceed to drag the lake.
Why needs this "fish" of hooks a mass
To capture but a single bass?

A rubber nipple some will use
And some a baby frog abuse,
While others yet will use a worm
Methinks 'tis but to see it squirm

With chicken-down and fluted spoon
Some chumps will troll; some like the moon
To woo me from my lilied lair,
While others swear by badger hair.

Of foolish men from city streets,
Who haunt the reedy bogs in fleets.
Though other species, biting, pass
To death, you cannot fool the bass.