If the all-ruling Power please
We live to see another May,
We'll recompense an age of these
Foul days in one fine fishing-day.
We then shall have a day or two,
Perhaps a week, wherein to try
What the best master's hand can do
With the most deadly killing fly.
A day with not too bright a beam;
A warm, but not a scorching sun;
A southern gale to curl the stream;
And, master, half our work is donę.
Then, whilst behind some bush we wait
The scaly people to betray,
We'll prove it just with treacherous bait.
To make the preying trout our prey; .
And think ourselves in such an hour
Happier than those, though not so high,
Who, like leviathans, devour
Of meaner men the smaller fry.
This, my best friend, at my poor home
Shall be our pastime and our theme;
But then-should you not deign to come,
You make all this a flattering dream.
I IN these flowery meads would be:
These crystal streams should solace me;
To whose harmonious bubbling noise
I with my angle would rejoice,
Sit here and see the turtle-dove
Court his chaste mate to acts of love:
Or on that bank feel the west wind
Breathe health and plenty please my mind
To see sweet dewdrops kiss these flowers,
And then washed off by April showers;
Here, hear my Kenna sing a song;
There, see a blackbird feed her young,
Or a laverock build her nest:
Here, give my weary spirits rest,
And raise my low-pitched thoughts above
Earth, or what poor mortals love:
Thus, free from lawsuits and the noise
Of princes' courts, I would rejoice ;
Or with my Bryan and a book
Loiter long days near Shawford brook;
There sit by him and eat my meat;
There see the sun both rise and set;
There bid good morning to next day;
There meditate my time away;
And angle on, and beg to have
A quiet passage to a welcome grave.
As inward love breeds outward talk,
The hound some praise, and some the hawk; Some better pleas'd with private sport
Use tennis, some a mistress court :
But these delights I neither wish,
Nor envy, while I freely fish.
Who hunts, doth oft in danger ride.
Who hawks, lures oft both far and wide;
Who uses games, shall often prove
A loser; but who falls in love
Is fettered in fond Cupid's snare;
My Angle breeds me no such care.
Of recreation there is none
So free as fishing is alone;
All other pastimes do no less
Than mind and body both possess:
My hand alone my work can do,
So I can fish and study too.
I care not, I, to fish in seas,
Fresh rivers best my mind do please;
Whose sweet calm course I contemplate,
And seek in life to imitate :
In civil bounds I fain would keep,
And for my past offences weep.
And when the timorous Trout I wait
To take, and he devours my bait,
How poor a thing sometimes I find
Will captivate a greedy mind:
And when none bite, I praise the wise,
Whom vain allurements ne'er surprise.
But yet, though while I fish I fast,
I make good fortune my repast,
And thereunto my friend invite,
In whom I more than that delight:
Who is more welcome to my dish,
Than to my Angle was my fish.
As well content no prize to take,
As use of taken prize to make :
For so our Lord was pleased when
He fishers made fishers of men :
Where, which is in no other game,
A man may fish and praise His name.
The first men that our Saviour dear
Did choose to wait upon Him here,
Blest fishers were, and fish the last
Food was that He on earth did take :
I therefore strive to follow those,
Whom He to follow Him hath chose.
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