Would the world now adopt me for her heir, Would beauties Queen entitle me the Fair, Fame speak me fortunes Minion, could I vie Angels w'th India, w'th a speaking eye Command bare heads, bow'd knees, strike Justice dumb As wel as blind and lame, or give a tongue To stones, by Epitaphs, be call'd great Master, In the loose Rhimes of every Poetaster Could I be more then any man that lives, Great, fair, rich, wise in all Superlatives; Yet I more freely would these gifts resign, Then ever fortune would have made them mine And hold one minute of this holy leasure, Beyond the riches of this empty pleasure.
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_.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Complete Angler, 1653, by Isaak Walton