To The Immortal Memory Of The Halibut, On Which I Dined This Day, Monday, April 26, 1784.

Where hast thou floated, in what seas pursued     Thy pastime? when wast thou an egg new spawnd,     Lost in the immensity of oceans waste?     Roar as they might, the overbearing winds     That rockd the deep, thy cradle, thou wast safe     And in thy minikin and embryo state,     Attachd to the firm leaf of some salt weed,     Didst outlive tempests, such as wrung and rackd     The joints of many a stout and gallant bark,     And whelmd them in the unexplored 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 brinewhere Caledonias rocks     Beat back the surgeand where Hibernia shoots     Her wondrous causeway far into the main.     Wherever thou hast fed, thou little thoughtst,     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 gulf,     To the same drag that caught thee!Fare thee well!     Thy lot thy brethren of the slimy fin     Would envy, could they know that thou wast doomd     To feed a bard, and to be praised in verse.