Let me live harmlessly; and near the brink
Of Trent or Avon have a dwelling place,---
Where I may see my quill, or cork, down sink
With eager bite of perch, or bleak, or dace;
And on the world and my Creator think:
Whilst some men strive ill-gotten goods t'embrace;
And others spend their time in base excess
Of wine,---or, worse, in war and wantonness:

Let them that list, these pastimes still pursue,
And on such pleasing fancies feed their fill:---
So I the fields and meadows green may view,
And daily by fresh rivers walk at will,
Among the daisies and the violets blue,
Red hyacinth, and yellow daffodil,
Purple narcissus like the morning rays,
Pale gander-grass, and azure culver-keyes:

I count it higher pleasure, to behold
The stately compass of the lofty sky;
And in the midst thereof, like burning gold,
The flaming chariot of the world's great eye;
The watery clouds, that in the air up-roll'd,
With sundry kinds of painted colours fly;
And fair Aurora, lifting up her head,
Still blushing, rise from old Tithonus' bed;

The hills and mountains raised from the plains;
The plains extended, level with the ground;
The grounds, divided into sundry veins;
The veins, inclosed with rivers running round;
These rivers, making way through nature's chains,
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 cool bowers the birds with many a song,
Do welcome with their quire the summer's Queen;
The meadows fair, where Flora's gifts among
Are intermixt, with verdant grass between;
The silver-scaled fish that softly swim
Within the sweet brook's crystal wat'ry stream.

All these, and many more, of His creation
That made the heavens, the Angler oft doth see,
Taking therein no little delectation,
To think how strange, how wonderful they be;
Framing thereof an inward contemplation,
To set his heart from other fancies free;
And whilst he looks on these with joyful eye,
His mind is rapt above the starry sky.