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.

Through thick and thin, both over bank and bush, | Hunting is the noblest exercise,
In hope her to attain by hook or crook.

Faerie Queene, Book iii. Cant. i.

The intent and not the deed

SPENSER.

Makes men laborious, active, wise,

Brings health, and doth the spirits delight,
It helps the hearing and the sight;
It teacheth arts that never slip

Is in our power; and therefore who dares greatly The memory, good horsemanship,

Does greatly.

Barbarossa.

J. BROWN.

"Stand, Bayard, stand!" The steed obeyed,
With arching neck and bended head,
And glancing eye, and quivering ear,
As if he loved his lord to hear.

No foot Fitz-James in stirrup staid,
No grasp upon the saddle laid,

But wreathed his left hand in the mane,
And lightly bounded from the plain,
Turned on the horse his armèd heel,
And stirred his courage with the steel.
Bounded the fiery steed in air,
The rider sate erect and fair,

Then, like a bolt from steel cross-bow

Forth launched, along the plain they go.

The Lady of the Lake, Cant. v.

SCOTT.

DR. S. BUTLER.

Search, sharpness, courage and defence,
And chaseth all ill habits hence.
Masques.

BEN JONSON

Contusion hazarding of neck or spine,
Which rural gentlemen call sport divine.

Needless Alarm.

My hawk is tired of perch and hood,
My idle greyhound loathes his food
My horse is weary of his stall,
And I am sick of captive thrall.
I wish I were as I have been
Hunting the hart in forests green,
With bended bow and bloodhound free,
For that 's the life is meet for me!

COWPER.

HUNTING.

Better to hunt in fields for health unbought,
Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught.
The wise for cure on exercise depend;

God never made his work for man to mend.
Cymon and Iphigenia.

DRYDEN.

EMERSON

CONCORD

· FARTHER horizons every year."

O tossing pines, which surge and wave
Above the poet's just made grave,
And waken for his sleeping ear
The music that he loved to hear,
Through summer's sun and winter's
chill,

Farther horizons every year."

So he, by reverent hands just laid
Beneath your layers of waving shade,
Climbed as you climb the upward way,
Knowing not boundary nor stay.
His eyes surcharged with heavenly
lights,

With purpose staunch and dauntless His senses steeped in heavenly sights,

will,

Sped by a noble discontent

You climb toward the blue firmament:
Climb as the winds climb, mounting high
The viewless ladders of the sky;
Spurning our lower atmosphere,
Heavy with sighs and dense with night,
And urging upward, year by year,
To ampler air, diviner light.

"Farther horizons every year."
Beneath you pass the tribes of men ;
Your gracious boughs o'ershadow them.
You hear, but do not seem to heed,
Their jarring speech, their faulty creed.
Your roots are firmly set in soil
Won from their humming paths of toil;
Content their lives to watch and share,
To serve them, shelter, and upbear,
Yet but to win an upward way
And larger gift of heaven than they,
Benignant view and attitude,
Close knowledge of celestial sign;
Still working for all earthly good,
While pressing on to the Divine.

His soul attuned to heavenly keys,
How should he pause for rest or ease,
Or turn his winged feet again

| To share the common feasts of men?
He blessed them with his word and
smile

But, still above their fickle moods,
Wooing, constraining him, the while
Beckoned the shining altitudes.

"Farther horizons every year."
To what immeasurable height,
What clear irradiance of light,
What far and all-transcendent goal,
Hast thou now risen, O steadfast soul!
We may not follow with our eyes
To where the further pathway lies;
Nor guess what vision, vast and free,
God keeps in store for souls like thee.
But still the sentry pines, which wave
Their boughs above thy honored grave,
Shall be thy emblems brave and fit,
Firm rooted in the stalwart sod;
Blessing the earth, while spurning it,
Content with nothing short of God.
SUSAN COOLIDGE

May 31, 1882

Publishers: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston