32 THOMAS KEN AND IZAAK WALTON 



I shall bid you a long adieu, to seek the King, 

 to wander, I know not whither, or where I may 

 rest my head to-morrow night. I go, perhaps, to 

 die unremembered in a distant land, ... I could 

 well be content to share the humble meal of piety 

 and content in this nook ; but I have pondered on 

 everything. ... I might live to be a burden to you 

 both. I am advancing in life, but still unshrinking 

 to meet whatever may be my fortune. My Royal 

 and kind master has perished — I have taken leave, 

 at the foot of the scaffold, of my last brave friend, 

 Lord Capel. Lest we grow melancholy, dear 

 daughter, I would pray you, before we part — 

 perhaps for ever — to favour me with one of those 

 ditties which I have so often loved to hear in this 

 solitude. 



Kenna. What shall it be .' My husband's own 

 ballad I once used to sing on the pleasant banks 

 of the Lea, in our golden days of life ? 



" I, in the pleasant meads would be ; 

 These crystal streams shall solace me ! " 



when he used to love to hear "his Kenna sing a 

 song ? " Alas 1 those pleasant days will never 

 return ; and this song now little suits us, with our 

 altered age and fortunes. 



