Explore "The Catfish" by Oliver Herford on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The saddest fish that swims the briny ocean, / The Catfish I bewail. / I can not even think without emotion / Of his distressful tail. / When with my pencil once I tried to draw one, / (I dare not show it here) / Mayhap it is because I never saw one, / The picture looked so queer. / I vision him half feline and half fishy, / A paradox in twins, / Unmixable as vitriol and vichy -- / A thing of fur and fins. / A feline Tantalus, forever chasing / His fishy self to rend; / His finny self forever self-effacing / In circles without end. / This tale may have a Moral running through it / As Æsop had in his; / If so, dear reader, you are welcome to it, / If you know what it is!