good picture of both; and so much of your own mind too, as will make any reader, that is blest with a generous soul, to love you the better. I confess, that for doing this you may justly judge me too bold: if you do, I will say so too; and so far commute for my offence, that, though I be more than a hundred miles from you, and in the eighty-third year of my age, yet I will forget both, and next month begin a pilgrimage to beg your pardon; for I would die in your favour, and till then will live,

SIR,

Your most affectionate

Father and Friend,

IZAAC WALTON.

London, April 29, 1676.

THE RETIREMENT.

STANZES IRREGULIERS,

TO

MR. IZAAK WALTON,

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 appears.

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 vallies, 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 t'intend:
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.

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.

Such streams Rome's yellow Tyber 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:

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

Beloved Dove, with thee

To vie priority;

Nay, Tame 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-stars heat

And all anxieties, my safe retreat:

What safety, privacy, what true delight,

In the 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 intrusted 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; I

And, all the while,

Without an envious eye

On any thriving under fortune's smile,

Contented live, and then, contented die.

C. C.

(1) This he did not; for he was born 1630, and died in 1687. See the Account of his Life prefixed.