xcviii TO MR. IZ. WALTON. 



Which having first your pastime been, 



Serves then for meat or medicine. 



Ambush'd behind that root doth stay 



A Pike, to catch and be a prey. 



The treacherous quill in this slow stream 



Betrays the hunger of a Bream. 



And at that nimble ford, no doubt, 



Your false fly cheats a speckled Trout. 

 When you these creatures wisely chuse 



To practise on, which to your use 



Owe their creation, and when 



Fish from your arts do rescue men ; 



To plot, delude, and circumvent, 



Ensnai-e and spoil, is innocent. 



Here by these crystal streams you may 



Preserve a conscience clear as they ; 



And when by sullen thouglits you find 



Your harassed, not busied, mind 



In sable melancholy clad, 



Distemper'd, serious, turning sad; 



Hence fetch your cure, cast in your bait, 



All anxious thoughts and cares will straight 



Fly with such speed, they'll seem to be 

 Possest with the Hydrophohie. 



The water's calmness in your breast. 

 And smoothness on your brow shall rest. 

 Away with sports of charge and noise. 

 And give me cheap and silent joys : 

 Such as ActcEon's game pursue. 

 Their fate oft makes the tale seem true. 

 The sick or sullen hawk to-day 

 Flies not ; to-morrow, quite away. 

 Patience and purse to cards and dice 

 Too oft are made a sacrifice : 

 The daughter's dower, th' inheritance 

 0' th' son, depend on one mad chance. 

 The harms and mischiefs which th' abuse 

 Of wine doth every day produce, 

 Make good the doctrine of the Turks, 

 That in each grape a devil lurlw. 

 And by yon fading sapless tree, 

 'Bout which the ivy twin'd you see. 

 His fate's foretold, who fondly places 

 His bliss in woman's soft embraces. 

 All pleasures, but the angler's, bring 

 r th' tail repentance like a sting. 



