But if the breathless chase o’er hill and dale Exceed your strength; a sport of less fatigue, Not less delightful, the prolific stream Affords. The chrystal rivulet, that o’er 70 A stony channel rolls its rapid maze, Swarms with the silver fry. Such, thro’ the bounds Of pastoral Stafford, runs the brawling Trent; Such Eden, sprung from Cumbrian mountains; such The Esk, o’erhung with woods; and such the stream 75 On whole Arcadian banks I first drew air, Liddal; till now, except in Doric lays Tun’d to her murmurs by her love-sick swains, Unknown in song: Tho’ not a purer stream, Thro’ meads more flow’ry, or more romantic groves, 80 Rolls toward the western main. Hail sacred flood! May still thy hospitable swains be blest In rural innocence; thy mountains still Teem with the fleecy race; thy tuneful woods For ever flourish; and thy vales look gay 85 With painted meadows, and the golden grain! Oft, with thy blooming sons, when life was new, Sportive and petulant, and charm’d with toys, In thy transparent eddies have I lav’d: Oft trac’d with patient steps thy fairy banks, 90 With the well-imitated fly to hook The eager trout, and with the slender line And yielding rod sollicite to the shore The struggling panting prey; while vernal clouds And tepid gales obscur’d the ruffled pool, 95 And from the deeps call’d forth the wanton swarms.