Here are no false entrapping baits, To hasten too, too hasty Fates, Unless it be The fond credulity Of silly fish, which worldling like, still look Upon the bait, but never on the hook;Nor envy, unless among The birds, for prize of their sweet song.
Go, let the diving negro seek For gems, hid in some forlorn creek:
We all pearls scorn, Save what the dewy morn Congeals upon each little spire of grass, Which careless shepherds beat down as they pass:
And gold ne'er here appears, Save what the yellow Ceres bears,Blest silent groves, oh may ye be, For ever, mirth's best nursery !
May pure contents For ever pitch their tents Upon these downs, these meads, these rocks, these mountains.
And peace still slumber by these purling fountains:
Which we may, every year, Meet when we come a-fishing here.
Piscator.Trust me, Scholar, I thank you heartily for these Verses: they be choicely good, and doubtless made by a lover of angling.Come, now, drink a glass to me, and I will requite you with another very good copy: it is a farewell to the vanities of the world, and some say written by Sir Harry Wotton, who I told you was an excellent angler.But let them be writ by whom they will, he that writ them had a brave soul, and must needs be possess with happy thoughts at the time of their composure.
Farewell, ye gilded follies, pleasing troubles;Farewell, ye honour'd rags, ye glorious bubbles;Fame's but a hollow echo, Gold, pure clay;Honour the darling but of one short day;
Beauty, th' eye's idol, but a damask'd skin;State, but a golden prison, to live in And torture free-born minds; embroider'd Trains, Merely but pageants for proud swelling veins;And Blood allied to greatness is alone Inherited, not purchas'd, nor our own.
Fame, Honour, Beauty, State, Train, Blood and Birth, Are but the fading blossoms of the earth.
I would be great, but that the sun doth still Level his rays against the rising hill:
I would be high, but see the proudest oak Most subject to the rending thunder-stroke: