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If rocks deny, let art retreat bestow, 

 And leafy branches in the water throw. 

 Now when the fish, invited by the food, 

 Frequent the shade, hang nets around the flood, 

 And drawing down the stream your boughs, convey 

 Into your flaxen snares the finny prey. 

 Then leafy boughs and branches place again, 

 And with fresh arts a fresh supply obtain. 

 Tubs, which to lakes your captive fishes bear, 

 Should at the top admit the vital air ; 

 And if a brook or spring is in the way, 

 With cooling draughts refresh the thirsty prey. 



Various of waters, as of soils, the kind; 

 Some stagnant, others running there you'll find, 

 The bottom fill'd with oose, and mud, and here 

 Sand mixt with golden gravel will appear.* 



* The fish of lakes, and motes, and stagnant ponds 



(Remote from sea, or where no spring commands, 



And intermingling its refreshing waves 



Is teach unto the mote, and tenches saves 



And keeps them medical) are of all sorts 



Lesse innocent, unless some river courts 



The sullen nymph, and blending waters, she 



Of a foul Mopsa's made Leucotboe. 



Her inmates otherwise, like herself, smeli, 



Taste of the harbour (that is) scent not well j 



Slow to digest: alive, they liv'd to close, 



And dead they can't their native dulness lose. 



Give me a salmon, who with winged fins 



'Gainst tide and stream firks b're the fishing-gins 



Of locks and hives, and circling in a gyre 



His vaulting corps , he leaps the baffled wyre. 



Let fish have room enough and their full play, 



Ko liquor want, not on a Fish-street day." 



Edmund Gay ton's Art of Longevity, 



In 



