INTRODUCTORY REMARKS ON ANGLING. 15 



And others spend their time in base exces* 

 Of wine, or worse, in war and wantonness. 



" Let them that list, these pastimes still pursue, 



And in such pleasing fancies feed their fill ; 

 So I the fields and meadows green may view, 



And daily by fresh rivers walk at Till, 

 Among the daisies and the violets blue, 



Red hyacinth, and yellow daffodil, 

 Purple narcissus like the morning ray*, 

 Pale gander-grass, and azure culver-keys. 



I count it higher pleasure to behold 



The stately compass of the lofty sky , 

 And in the mist thereof, like burning gold, 



The flaming chariot of the world's great eyo ; 

 The watery clouds that in the air up-roll'd, 



With sundry kinds of painted colors fly; 

 And fair Aurora, lifting up her head, 

 Still blushing, rise from old Tithonus' bed. 



The hills and mountains raised from the plainc, 



The plains extended level with the ground ; 

 The grounds divided into sundry veins, 



The veins enclosed with rivers running round; 

 The rivers making way through nature's chain* 



With headlong course into the sea profound ; 

 The raging sea, beneath the valleys low, 

 Where lakes, and rills, and rivulets do flow. 



" The lofty woods, the forests wide and long, 

 Adorn'd with leaves and branches fresh and green, 



In whose cold bowers the birds with many a song, 

 Do welcome with their choir the Summer's queen* 



The meadows fair, where Flora's gifts among 

 Are intermix'd with verdant grass between ; 



The silver scaled fish that softly swim 



Within the sweet brook's chrystal, watery stream. 



" All these, and many more of His creation 

 That made the heavens, the Angler oft doth see 



