Sweet rose, whose hue, angry and brave,
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye,
Thy root is ever in its grave;
And thou must die.
Sweet Spring, full of sweet days and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie;
Thy music shows ye have your closes;
And all must die.
Only a sweet and virtuous soul,
Like season'd timber, never gives;
But, though the whole world turn to coal,
Then chiefly lives.
Venator.—I thank you, good master, for your good direction for fly-fishing, and for the sweet enjoyment of the pleasant day, which is so far spent without offence to God or man; and I thank you for the sweet close of your discourse with Mr. Herbert's verses, who, I have heard, loved angling; and I do the rather believe it, because he had a spirit suitable to anglers, and to those primitive Christians that you love and have so much commended.
Piscator.—Well, my loving scholar, and I am pleased to know that you are so well pleased with my direction and discourse.... And now, I think it will be time to repair to our angle-rods, which we left in the water to fish for themselves: and you shall choose which shall be yours; and it is an even lay, one of them catches.
And, let me tell you, this kind of fishing with a dead rod, and laying night-hooks, are like putting money to use; for they both work for the owners, when they do nothing but sleep, or eat, or rejoice; as you know we have done this last hour, and sat as quietly, and as free from cares under this sycamore, as Virgil's Tityrus and his Melibœus did, under their broad beech tree. No life, my honest scholar, no life so happy and so pleasant, as the life of a well-governed angler; for when the lawyer is swallowed up with business, and the statesman is preventing or contriving plots, then we sit on cowslip banks, hear the birds sing, and possess ourselves in as much quietness as these silent silver streams, which we now see glide so quietly by us. Indeed, my good scholar, we may say of angling as Dr. Boteler said of strawberries, "Doubtless, God could have made a better berry, but doubtless, God never did;" and so, if I might be judge, "God never did make a more calm, quiet, innocent recreation than angling."