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6 SONGS. ETC.
No other pastimes (thus employ'd) Yield us such freedom while enjoy'd ; All recreations else, no less Than mind and body both possess.
My hand, alone, my work can do:
So 1 can fish and study too.
I have not angling (rude) on seas,
Fresh streams my inclination please ;
Whose sweet calm course to thought I call,
And seek in life to copy all:
In bounds (like their's) I fain would keep, Like them would (when I break them) weep.
And when the timerous trout I wait To take, and he devours my bait; How small, how poor a thing, I find, Will captivate a greedy mind ;
Who comes more welcome to my dish,
Than to my angle was my fish.
Content, as well, if nought I take, As use, of what obtain'd, to make-Christ thus was pleas'd, His fishers when He happier fishers made of men.
Where—(which no other sport can claim) A man may fish and praise His name.
His first attendants chose on earth,
Blest fishers were, of meanest birth ;
And fish, as sacred record show,
Was His last-tasted food below— I therefore strive to follow those, Whom, Him to follow, He hath chose. |
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