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XXII

THE RETIREMENT

"The Complete Angler," Part ii.

Cotton's additions were made in 1676, when the first part had reached its fifth edition.

I

Farewell, thou busy world! and may
We never meet again:

Here I can eat, and sleep, and pray,

And do more good in one short day,
Than he, who his whole age out wears
Upon the most conspicuous theatres,

Where nought but vanity and vice do reign.

II

Good God! how sweet are all things here!
How beautiful the fields appear!

How cleanly do we feed and lie!
Lord! what good hours do we keep!
How quietly we sleep!

What peace! what unanimity!
How innocent from the lewd fashion,
Is all our business, all our recreation!

III

Oh, how happy here's our leisure
Oh, how innocent our pleasure!
Oh, ye valleys! Oh, ye mountains!
Oh, ye groves, and crystal fountains,
How I love at liberty,

By turns, to come and visit ye!

IV

Dear Solitude, the soul's best friend,

That man acquainted with himself dost make,

And all his Maker's wonders to entend,
With thee I here converse at will,

And would be glad to do so still;

For it is thou alone, that keep'st the soul awake.

V

How calm, and quiet a delight,

Is it, alone

To read, and meditate, and write;

By none offended and offending none.

To walk, ride, sit, or sleep at one's own ease!
And, pleasing a man's self, none other to displease.

VI

Oh, my beloved nymph! fair Dove!

Princess of Rivers! how I love

Upon thy flowery banks to lie,

And view thy silver stream,
When gilded by a summer's beam!
And in it, all thy wanton fry,
Playing at liberty;

And, with my angle upon them,

The all of treachery

I ever learn'd industriously to try.

VII

Such streams, Rome's yellow Tiber cannot show,

The Iberian Tagus, or Ligurian Po:

The Maese, the Danube, and the Rhine,

Are puddle-water all, compared with thine:
And Loire's pure streams yet too polluted are
With thine much purer to compare;

C

The rapid Garonne, and the winding Seine,
Are both too mean,

Beloved Dove with thee

To vie priority:

Nay, Thame and Isis when conjoin'd submit,
And lay their trophies at thy silver feet.

VIII

Oh, my beloved rocks! that rise

To awe the earth and brave the skies:
From some aspiring mountain's crown,
How dearly do I love,

Giddy with pleasure to look down,

And from the vales to view the noble heights above!

Oh, my beloved caves! from Dog-star's heat

And all anxieties my safe retreat;

What safety, privacy, what true delight,

In th' artificial night

Your gloomy entrails make,

Have I taken, do I take!

How oft when grief has made me fly

To hide me from society,

Ev'n of my dearest friends, have I

In your recesses' friendly shade

All my sorrows open laid,

And my most secret woes entrusted to your privacy !

IX

Lord! would men let me alone;

What an over-happy one

Should I think myself to be,

Might I, in this desert place,

Which most men in discourse disgrace,
Live but undisturb'd and free!
Here in this despis'd recess,

Would I, maugre winter's cold,
And the summer's worst excess,

Try to live out to sixty full years old! And all the while,

Without an envious eye

On any thriving under Fortune's smile,

Contented live, and then-contented die.

"Poems," 1689.

XXIII

From THE CONTENTATION

That man is happy in his share,
Who is warm clad, and cleanly fed,
Whose necessaries bound his care,

And honest labour makes his bed.

Who free from debt, and clear from crimes,
Honours those laws that others fear,

Who ill of princes in worst times
Will neither speak himself, nor hear.

Who from the busy world retires,
To be more useful to it still,
And to no greater good aspires,
But only the eschewing ill.

Who with his angle, and his books,
Can think the longest day well spent,
And praises God when back he looks,
And finds that all was innocent.

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