RURAL SPORTS. H

Nor drain I ponds the golden carp to take,

Nor trowle for pikes, dispeoples of the lake.

Around the steel no tortur’d worm shall twine,

No blood of living insect stain my line;

Let me less cruel cast the feather’d hook,

With pliant rod athwart the pebbled brook,

Silent along the mazy margin stray,

And with the fur- wrought sty delude the prey.

CANTO II.

N Ow, sporting muse, draw in the flowing reins,Leave the clear streams awhile for funny plains.Should you the various arms and toils rehearse,

And all the filherman adorn thy verse;

Should you the wide-encircling net display,

And in its spacious arch enclose the sea,

Then haul the plunging load upon the land,

And with the soale and turbet hide the sand;

It would extend the growing theme too long,

And tire the reader with the watery song.

Let the keen hunter from the chase refrain,

Nor render all the plowman’s labour vain,

When Ceres pours out plenty from her horn,

And cloaths the fields with golden ears of coin.

Now, now, ye reapers, to your task repair,

Haste, save the product of the bounteous year:

To the wide-gathering hook long furrows yield,

And rising (heaves extend through all the field.

Yet if for silvan sport thy bosom glow,

Let thy fleet greyhound urge his flying foe.

With what delight the rapid course I view !

How does my eye the circling race pursue >

B 2