So great as thine is throughout all these plains?
Who has so many friends, so pretty loves?
Who by our bubbling fountains and green groves
Passes away the summer heats so well?
And who but thee in singing does excel?
So that the swains, when Clotten sings or plays,
Lay down their pipes, and listen to his lays?
Wherein then can consist, I fain would know,
The misery that thou complain'st of so?
Some of these things are true, but, Corydon,
That which maintain'd all these, alas! is gone;
The want of wealth I reckon not distress,
But of enough to do good offices;
Which growing less, those friends will fall away;
Poverty is the ground of all decay;
With our prosperities our friendships end,
And to misfortune no one is a friend,
Which I already find to that degree,
That my old friends are now afraid of me,
And all avoid me, as good men would fly
The common hangman's shameful company.
Those who by fortune were advanc'd above,
Being obliged by my most ready love,
Shun me, for fear lest my necessity
Should urge what they're unwilling to deny,
And are resolved they will not grant; and those
Have shar'd my meat, my money, and my clothes,
Grown rich with others' spoils as well as mine,
The coming near me now do all decline,
Lest shame and gratitude should draw them in,
To be to me what I to them have been;
By which means I am stripped of all supplies,
And left alone to my own miseries.
In the relation that thy grief has made,
The World's false friendships are too true display'd;
But, courage man, thou hast one friend in store,
Will ne'er forsake thee for thy being poor;
I will be true to thee in worst estate,
And love thee more now than when fortunate.
All goodness then on earth I see's not lost,
I of one friend in misery can boast,
Which is enough, and peradventure more
Than any one could ever do before;
And I to thee as true a friend will prove,
Not to abuse but to deserve thy love.
To My Dear and Most Worthy Friend,
Mr. Izaak Walton 23
WHILST in this cold and blust'ring clime,
Where bleak winds howl, and tempests roar,
We pass away the roughest time
Has been of many years before ;
Whilst from the most tempest'ous nooks
The chillest blasts our peace invade,
And by great rains our smallest brooks
Are almost navigable made;
Whilst all the ills are so improv'd
Of this dead quarter of the year,
That even you, so much belov'd,
We would not now wish with us here;
In this estate, I say, it is
Some comfort to us to suppose,
That in a better clime than this
You our dear Friend have more repose;
And some delight to me the while,
Though nature now does weep in rain,
To think that I have seen her smile,
And haply may I do again.
If the all-ruling Power please
We live to see another May,
We'll recompense an age of these
Foul days in one fine fishing day:
We then shall have a day or two,
Perhaps a week, wherein to try,
What the best Master's hand can do
With the most deadly killing fly;
A day without too bright a beam,
A warm, but not a scorching sun,
A southern gale to curl the stream,
And (Master) half our work is done.
There whilst behind some bush we wait
The scaly people to betray,
We'll prove it just with treach'rous bait
To make the preying trout our prey;
And think ourselves in such an hour
Happier than those, though not so high,
Who, like Leviathans, devour
Of meaner men the smaller fry.
This (my best Friend) at my poor home
Shall be our pastime and our theme,
But then should you not deign to come
You make all this a flatt'ring dream.
The Eighth Psalm Paraphrased
I. O LORD, our Governor, whose potent sway
All pow'rs in Heav'n and Earth obey,
Throughout the spacious Earth's extended frame
How great is thy adored Name!
Thy glories thou hast seated, Lord, on high,
Above the Empirean Sky.
2. Out of the mouths of infants, newly come
From the dark closet of the womb,
Thou hast ordained pow'rful Truth to rise,
To baffle all thine enemies;
That thou the furious rage might'st calm agen,
Of bloody and revengeful men.
3. When on thy glorious Heav'ns I reflect,
Thy work, almighty Architect,
The changing Moon and Stars that thou hast made T'illuminate night's sable shade;
4. Oh! what is man, think I, that Heaven's King
Should mind so poor a wretched thing;
Or Man's frail offspring, that Almighty God
Should stoop to visit his abode ?
5. For thou createdst him but one degree
Below the Heav'nly Hierarchy
Of bless'd and happy Angels, and didst crown
Frail dust with glory and renown.
6. Over the works of thy Almighty hand
Thou giv'st him absolute command,
And all the rest that thou hast made
Under his feet hast subject laid;
7. All sheep, and oxen, and the wilder breed
Of beasts that on their fellows feed;
8. The Air's inhabitants, and scaly brood,
That live and wanton in the Flood,
And whatsoe'er does either swim or creep
Through th' investigable Deep:
9. Throughout the spacious Earth's extended frame How great is thy adored Name.
How with ill nature does this world abound!
When I, who ever thought myself most sound,
And free from that infection, now must choose
Out you (my Lord) whom least I should abuse
To trouble with a tempest, who have none
In
your firm breast t'afflict you of your own;
But since of friendship it the nature is,
In any accident that falls amiss,
Whether of sorrow, terror, loss, or pain,
Caus'd or by men or fortune, to complain
To those who of our ills have deepest sense,
And in whose favour we've most confidence,
Pardon, if in a storm I here engage
Your calmer thoughts, and on a Sea, whose rage
When but a little mov'd, as far outbraves
The tamer mutinies of Adria's Waves,
As they, when worst for Neptune to appease
The softest curls of most pacific seas;
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