From that far isle the thresher's flail

Strikes close upon the ear;
The leaping fish, the swinging sail
Of yonder sloop, sound near.

The parting sun sends out a glow
Across the placid bay,
Touching with glory all the show.
A breeze! Up helm! Away!

Careening to the wind, they reach,
With laugh and call, the shore.
hey've left their footprints on the beach,
But them I hear no more.

RICHARD HENRY DANA.

THE ANGLER'S TRYSTING-TREE.
SING, Sweet thrushes, forth and sing!
Meet the morn upon the lea;
Are the emeralds of the spring

On the angler's trysting-tree?
Tell, sweet thrushes, tell to me!
Are there buds on our willow-tree?
Buds and birds on our trysting-tree?

Sing, sweet thrushes, forth and sing!
Have you met the honey-bee,
Circling upon rapid wing,

Round the angler's trysting-tree?
Up, sweet thrushes, up and see!
Are there bees at our willow-tree?
Birds and bees at the trysting-tree?

Sing, sweet thrushes, forth and sing!
Are the fountains gushing free?
Is the south-wind wandering

Through the angler's trysting-tree?
Up, sweet thrushes, tell to me!
Is there wind up our willow-tree?
Wind or calm at our trysting-tree?

Sing, sweet thrushes, forth and sing!
Wile us with a merry glee

To the flowery haunts of spring, –
To the angler's trysting-tree.
Tell, sweet thrushes, tell to me!

Are there flowers 'neath our willow-tree
Spring and flowers at the trysting-tree?

THOMAS TOD STODDARD.

IN PRAISE OF ANGLING. QUIVERING fears, heart-tearing cares, Anxious sighs, untimely tears,

Fly, fly to courts,

Fly to fond worldlings' sports,

If the sun's excessive heat

Make our bodies swelter,
To an osier hedge we get,
For a friendly shelter;
Where, in a dike,
Perch or pike,
Roach or dace,

We do chase,
Bleak or gudgeon,
Without grudging ;

We are still contented.

Or we sometimes pass an hour
Under a green willow,
That defends us from a shower,
Making earth our pillow;
Where we may

Think and pray,

Before death

Stops our breath;

Other joys

Are but toys,

And to be lamented.

JOHN CHALKHILL

THE ANGLER'S WISH.

I IN these flowery meads would be,

These crystal streams should solace me;
To whose harmonious bubbling noise
I, with my angle, would rejoice,

Sit here, and see the turtle-dove

Court his chaste mate to acts of love;

Or, on that bank, feel the west-wind
Breathe health and plenty; please my mind,
To see sweet dew-drops kiss these flowers,
And then washed off by April showers;

*

Here, hear my Kenna sing a song:
There, see a blackbird feed her young,

Or a laverock build her nest;

Here, give my weary spirits rest,

And raise my low-pitched thoughts above

Earth, or what poor mortals love.

Thus, free from lawsuits, and the noise
Of princes' courts, I would rejoice;

Or, with my Bryan and a book,
Loiter long days near Shawford brook ;
There sit by him, and eat my meat;
There see the sun both rise and set;
There bid good morning to next day;

There meditate my time away;

And angle on; and beg to have
A quiet passage to a welcome grave.

IZAAK WALTON.

"Kenna," the name of his supposed mistress, seems to ham been formed from the name of his wife, which was Ken.

ANGLING.

FROM "THE SEASONS: SPRING."

JUST in the dubious point, where with the pool
Is mixed the trembling stream, or where it boils
Around the stone, or from the hollowed bank
Reverted plays in undulating flow,
There throw, nice-judging, the delusive fly;
And, as you lead it round in artful curve,
With eye attentive mark the springing game.
Straight as above the surface of the flood
They wanton rise, or urged by hunger leap,
Then fix, with gentle twitch, the barbed hook;
Some lightly tossing to the grassy bank,
And to the shelving shore slow dragging some,
With various hand proportioned to their force.
If yet too young, and easily deceived,
A worthless prey scarce bends your pliant rod,
Him, piteous of his youth, and the short space
He has enjoyed the vital light of heaven,
Soft disengage, and back into the stream
The speckled infant throw. But should you lure
From his dark haunt, beneath the tangled roots
Of pendent trees, the monarch of the brook,
Behooves you then to ply your finest art.
Long time he, following cautious, scans the fly;

And oft attempts to seize it, but as oft
The dimpled water speaks his jealous fear.
At last, while haply o'er the shaded sun
Passes a cloud, he desperate takes the death,
With sullen plunge. At once he darts along,
Deep-struck, and runs out all the lengthened line;
Then seeks the farthest ooze, the sheltering weed,
The caverned bank, his old secure abode;
And flies aloft, and flounces round the pool,
Indignant of the guile. With yielding hand,
That feels him still, yet to his furious course
Gives way, you, now retiring, following now
Across the stream, exhaust his idle rage;
Till, floating broad upon his breathless side,
And to his fate abandoned, to the shore
You gayly drag your unresisting prize.

THE ANGLER.

JAMES THOMSON.

BUT look! o'er the fall see the angler stand,
Swinging his rod with skilful hand;
The fly at the end of his gossamer line
Swims through the sun like a summer moth,
Till, dropt with a careful precision fine,

It touches the pool beyond the froth.
A-sudden, the speckled hawk of the brook
Darts from his covert and seizes the hook.
Swift spins the reel; with easy slip
The line pays out, and the rod, like a whip,

Lithe and arrowy, tapering, slim,

Is bent to a bow o'er the brooklet's brim,
Till the trout leaps up in the sun, and flings
The spray from the flash of his finny wings;
Then falls on his side, and, drunken with fright,
Is towed to the shore like a staggering barge,
Till beached at last on the sandy marge,
Where he dies with the hues of the morning light,
While his sides with a cluster of stars are bright.
The angler in his basket lays
The constellation, and goes his ways.

THOMAS BUCHANAN READ.

SWIMMING.

FROM "THE TWO FOSCARI."

How many a time have I Cloven, with arm still lustier, breast more daring, The wave all roughened; with a swimmer's stroke

Flinging the billows back from my drenched hair,
And laughing from my lip the audacious brine,
Which kissed it like a wine-cup, rising o'er
The waves as they arose, and prouder still
In wantonness of spirit, plunging down
The loftier they uplifted me; and oft,
Into their green and glassy gulfs, and making
My way to shells and sea-weed, all unseen
By those above, till they waxed fearful; then
Returning with my grasp full of such tokens
As showed that I had searched the deep; exult-
ing,

With a far-dashing stroke, and drawing deep

The long-suspended breath, again I spurned The foam which broke around me, and pursued My track like a sea-bird. — I was a boy then.

LORD BYRON.

BATHING.

FROM "THE SEASONS: SUMMER."

THE sprightly youth

Speeds to the well-known pool, whose crystal

depth

A sandy bottom shows. A while he stands
Gazing th' inverted landscape, half afraid
To meditate the blue profound below;
Then plunges headlong down the circling flood.
His ebon tresses and his rosy cheek
Instant emerge; and through the obedient wave,
At each short breathing by his lip repelled,
With arms and legs according well, he makes,
As humor leads, an easy-winding path ;
While from his polished sides a dewy light
Effuses on the pleased spectators round.

This is the purest exercise of health,
The kind refresher of the summer-heats;
Nor, when cold winter keens the brightening.
flood,

Would I weak-shivering linger on the brink.
Thus life redoubles, and is oft preserved,
By the bold swimmer, in the swift elapse
Of accident disastrous. Hence the limbs
Knit into force; and the same Roman arm,
That rose victorious o'er the conquered earth,
First learned, while tender, to subdue the wave.
Even from the body's purity, the mind
Receives a secret sympathetic aid.

Roguish archers, I'll be bound,
Little heeding whom they wound;
See them, with capricious pranks,
Ploughing now the drifted banks;
Jingle, jingle, mid the glee

Who among them cares for me?
Jingle, jingle, on they go,
Capes and bonnets white with snow,
Not a single robe they fold
To protect them from the cold;
Jingle, jingle, mid the storm,
Fun and frolic keep them warm ;
Jingle, jingle, down the hills,
O'er the meadows, past the mills,
Now 't is slow, and now 't is fast;
Winter will not always last.
Jingle, jingle, clear the way!
'Tis the merry, merry sleigh.