THE PLEASURES OF ANGLING. 



' TLs sweet to view the limpid water* dance, 

 AB o'er their pebbly bed they eager rush ; 

 Or in the sun's effulgence brightly glance, 

 As through the mead meandering they gush ; 

 Now ringing forth rich music, now all hush, 

 While song-birds chant the ever varied lay, 

 From out the willow and o'erhanging bush : 

 O, sweet it is to thread the blithsome way, 

 Clad in an angling guise, to spend a happy day 



" O, ever healthful is the mountain air, 

 And ever pleasant w the verdant glade ; 

 Tis sweet to wander through the greenwood, wheif 

 The sparkling current hath its passage made. 

 I love, at times, the cooling stream to wade, 

 Where brushwood dense a way will not allow; 

 I love the arc n ing bowers, and sylvan shade, 

 And blossoms sweet that wave from many a bougb- 



As cautiously adown the rippling path I so. 



" How meagre seems the world of business strife, 

 Compared with pleasures which the angler knows; 

 A scene of toil A ith disappointment rife, 

 And scarce an hour of calm and sweet repose, 

 This lovely world is made a world of woes, 

 To him whose soul is wrapped in selfish gains : 

 From manhood's prime, till life at length may clooc, 

 His feelings all are bound in Mammon's chains, 



And wealth at most be hoards for all his pains. " 





