10 RURAL SPORTS.

Then downward plunges with the fraudful prey,And bears with joy the little spoil away.

Soon in smart pain he feels the dire mistake,

Lashes the wave, and beats the foamy lake,

"With sudden rage he now aloft appears,

And in his eye convulsive anguish bears;

And now again, impatient of the wound,

He rolls and wreaths his shining body round;

Then headlong shoots beneath the dashing tide,

The trembling sins the boiling wave divide;

Now hope exalts the fisher’s beating heart,

Now he turns pale, and fears his dubious art;

He views the tumbling fish with longing eyes,"While the line stretches with th’ unwieldy prize;Each motion humours with his steady hands,

And one flight hair the mighty bulk commands;Till tir’d at last, defpoil’d of all his strength,

The game athwart the stream unfolds his length.

He now, with pleasure, views the gasping prizeGnash his sharp teeth, and roll his blood shot eyes;Then draws him to the shore, with artful care,

And lifts his nostrils in the sick’ning air:

Upon the burthen’d stream he floating lies,

Stretches his quivering sins, and gasping dies.Would you preserve a num’rous finny race ?

Let your fierce dogs the rav’nous otter chafe;

Th’ amphibious monster ranges all the shores,

Harts through the waves, and ev’ry haunt exploresOr let the gin his roving steps betray,

And save from hostile jaws the scaly prey.

I never wander where the bord’ring reedsO’erlook the muddy stream, whose tangling weedsperplex the fisher; I, nor chuse to bearThe thievish nightly net, nor barbed spear;