Robert Page Lincoln


The Angler

How happy he, who by fine cultured art,
Plies him a line upon a silvery stream--
Takes him therefrom a newly ventured theme,
And fair to speak hath change of mind and heart!
Whose gentle wrist shall to a fly impart
Semblance to living--being so, shall seem
To the brook eyes, nor fancy, nor a dream--
And so beguile by crafty counterpart!

He shall of faith in ample store be given;
Wedlock to peace--the hand of darling joy,
Sunshinest mood--the cleansing spirit of heaven,
And so betimes due gracefulness employ.
For him the gods shall favor and repay,
Make life and death, all one, a golden day!

Izaak Walton

Him did High Virtue perfectly endow,
Clean-wrought for living--Nature's gifted sage;
Uncoverer of Beauty on Time's gilded page,
Fine Priest of streams, of leaf and drooping bough;
Keeper of gladness, Faith's own solemn vow,--
Eschewing Gain and Competition's rage,
Measuring Life by Heaven's wiser gauge,
And breathing hope and blessedness enow!

Oh I have been much in delight to think,
How well his days were chosen to be spent.
And by the pools of Stafford, 'proached the brink
Of Paradise--and comfortably lent,
Him to sweet Themes of chaste divinity,
Kind songs of hope on skyward wings set free!

(Texts from Fisherman's Verse (Haynes and Harrison, eds, 1919).)