Welcom pure thoughts, welcome ye silent groves,
These guests, these Courts, my soul most dearly loves,
Now the wing'd people of the Skie shall sing
My chereful Anthems to the gladsome Spring;
A Pray'r book now shall be my looking glasse,
In which I will adore sweet vertues face.
Here dwell no hateful locks, no Pallace cares,
No broken vows dwell here, nor pale fac'd fears,
Then here I'l sit and sigh my hot loves folly,
And learn t'affect an holy melancholy.
And if contentment be a stranger, then
I'l nere look for it, but in heaven again_.
_Viat_. Wel Master, these be Verses that be worthy to keep a room in
every mans memory. I thank you for them, and I thank you for your many
instructions, which I will not forget; your company and discourse have
been so pleasant, that I may truly say, I have only lived, since I
enjoyed you and them, and turned Angler. I am sorry to part with you
here, here in this place where I first met you, but it must be so: I
shall long for the ninth of _May_, for then we are to meet at _Charls
Brandons_. This intermitted time wil seem to me (as it does to men in
sorrow,) to pass slowly, but I wil hasten it as fast as I can by my
wishes, and in the mean time _the blessing of Saint_ Peters _Master be
with mine_.
_Pisc_. And the like be upon my honest Scholer. And upon all that hate
contentions, and love _quietnesse_, and _vertue_, and _Angling_.
FINIS.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Complete Angler, 1653, by Isaak Walton
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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