Till he came where the column of moonshine lay. And saw beneath the surface dim The brown-back'd sturgeon slowly swim; Around him were the goblin train --

Literary Associations of the Hudson 259

But he scull'd with all his might and main, And follow'd wherever the sturgeon led, Till he saw him upward point his head ; Then he dropp'd his paddle blade. And held his colen-goblet up To catch the drop in its crimson cup.

With sweeping tail and cjuivering fin, Through the wave the stvirgeon Hew, And, like the heaven-shot javelin, He sprung above the waters blue. Instant as the star-fall light, He plunged him in the deep again, But left an arch of silver bright, The rainbow of the moony main. It was a strange and lovely sight To see the puny gobhn there; He seem'd an angel form of light, With azure wing and sunny hair, Throned on a cloud of purple fair. Circled with blue and edged with white. And sitting at the fall of even Beneath the bow of summer heaven.

A moment, and its lustre fell; But ere it met the billow blue, He caught within his crimson bell A droplet of its sparkling dew -- Joy to thee. Fay! thy task is done; Thy wings are pure, for the gem is won. Cheerily ply thy dripping oar, And haste away to the elfin shore.

It was once the fashion among admirers of Drake's dainty work to ])lace the author upon a somewhat dizzy pedestal. More than one has compared the hvely trochaic tetrameter that concludes The Culprit