Let me live harmlessly; and near the brink
Of Trent or Avon have a dwelling place,
Where I may see my quill or cork down sink
With eager bite of perch, or bleak, or dace;
And on the world and my Creator think,
Whilst some men strive ill-gotten goods to embrace,
And others spend their time in base excess
Of wine, or worse, in war and wantonness.
Let them that list these pastimes then pursue,
And on their pleasing fancies feed their fill;
So I the fields and meadows green may view,
And by the rivers fresh may walk at will
Among the daisies and the violets blue,
Red hyacinth and yellow daffodil,
Purple narcissus like the morning rays,
Pale ganderglass and azure culver-kays.
I count it better pleasure to behold
The goodly compass of the lofty sky,
And in the midst thereof, like burning gold,
The flaming chariot of the world's great eye,
The wat'ry clouds that in the air uprolled
With sundry kinds of painted colours fly;
And fair Aurora lifting up her head,
All blushing rise from old Tithonus' bed;
The hills and mountains raisid from the plains,
The plains extended level with the ground,
The ground divided into sundry veins,
The veins inclosed with running rivers round,
The rivers making way through nature's chains
With headlong course into the sea profound,
The surging sea beneath the valleys low,
The valleys sweet, and lakes that lovely flow;
The lofty woods, the forests wide and long,
Adorned with leaves and branches fresh and green,
In whose cool bowers the birds with chaunting song
Do welcome with their quire the summer's Queen;
The meadows fair where Flora's gifts among
Are intermixed the verdant grass between;
The silver-scalid fish that softly swim
Within the brooks and crystal wat'ry brim.
All these, and many more of his creation
That made the heavens, the angler oft doth see,
And takes therein no little delectation
To think how strange and wonderful they be;
Framing thereof an inward contemplation
To set his thoughts from other fancies free;
And whiles he looks on these with joyful eye,
His mind is rapt above the starry sky.
Of Trent or Avon have a dwelling place,
Where I may see my quill or cork down sink
With eager bite of perch, or bleak, or dace;
And on the world and my Creator think,
Whilst some men strive ill-gotten goods to embrace,
And others spend their time in base excess
Of wine, or worse, in war and wantonness.
Let them that list these pastimes then pursue,
And on their pleasing fancies feed their fill;
So I the fields and meadows green may view,
And by the rivers fresh may walk at will
Among the daisies and the violets blue,
Red hyacinth and yellow daffodil,
Purple narcissus like the morning rays,
Pale ganderglass and azure culver-kays.
I count it better pleasure to behold
The goodly compass of the lofty sky,
And in the midst thereof, like burning gold,
The flaming chariot of the world's great eye,
The wat'ry clouds that in the air uprolled
With sundry kinds of painted colours fly;
And fair Aurora lifting up her head,
All blushing rise from old Tithonus' bed;
The hills and mountains raisid from the plains,
The plains extended level with the ground,
The ground divided into sundry veins,
The veins inclosed with running rivers round,
The rivers making way through nature's chains
With headlong course into the sea profound,
The surging sea beneath the valleys low,
The valleys sweet, and lakes that lovely flow;
The lofty woods, the forests wide and long,
Adorned with leaves and branches fresh and green,
In whose cool bowers the birds with chaunting song
Do welcome with their quire the summer's Queen;
The meadows fair where Flora's gifts among
Are intermixed the verdant grass between;
The silver-scalid fish that softly swim
Within the brooks and crystal wat'ry brim.
All these, and many more of his creation
That made the heavens, the angler oft doth see,
And takes therein no little delectation
To think how strange and wonderful they be;
Framing thereof an inward contemplation
To set his thoughts from other fancies free;
And whiles he looks on these with joyful eye,
His mind is rapt above the starry sky.