Classic Poem

Now as an angler melancholy standing
Upon a green bank yielding room for landing,
A wriggling yellow worm thrust on his hook,
Now in the midst he throws, then in a nook:
Here pulls his line, there throws it in again,
Mendeth his cork and bait, but all in vain,
He long stands viewing of the curled stream;
At last a hungry pike, or well-grown bream
Snatch at the worm, and hasting fast away,
He knowing it a fish of stubborn sway,
Pulls up his rod, but soft, as having skill,
Wherewith the hook fast holds the fish's gill;
Then all his line he freely yieldeth him,
Whilst furiously all up and down doth swim
Th' insnared fish, here on the top doth scud,
There underneath the banks, then in the mud,
And with his frantic fits so scares the shoal,
That each one takes his hide, or starting hole:
By this the pike, clean wearied, underneath
A willow lies, and pants (if fishes breathe)
Wherewith the angler gently pulls him to him,
And lest his haste might happen to undo him,
Lays down his rod, then takes his line in hand,
And by degrees getting the fish to land,
Walks to another pool: at length is winner
Of such a dish as serves him for his dinner:
So when the climber half the way had got,
Musing he stood, and busily 'gan plot
How (since the mount did always steeper tend)
He might with steps secure his journey end.
At last (as wand'ring boys to gather nuts)
A hooked pole he from a hazel cuts;
Now throws it here, then there to take some hold,
But bootless and in vain, the rocky mould
Admits no cranny where his hazel hook
Might promise him a step, till in a nook
Somewhat above his reach he hath espied
A little oak, and having often tried
To catch a bough with standing on his toe,
Or leaping up, yet not prevailing so,
He rolls a stone towards the little tree,
Then gets upon it, fastens warily
His pole unto a bough, and at his drawing
The early-rising crow with clam'rous cawing,
Leaving the green bough, flies about the rock,
Whilst twenty twenty couples to him flock:
And now within his reach the thin leaves wave,
With one hand only then he holds his stave,
And with the other grasping first the leaves,
A pretty bough he in his fist receives;
Then to his girdle making fast the hook,
His other hand another bough hath took;
His first, a third, and that, another gives,
To bring him to the place where his root lives.
Then, as a nimble squirrel from the wood,
Ranging the hedges for his filberd-food,
Sits peartly on a bough his brown nuts cracking,
And from the shell the sweet white kernel taking,
Till with their crooks and bags a sort of boys,
To share with him, come with so great a noise,
That he is forc'd to leave a nut nigh broke,
And for his life leap to a neighbour oak,
Thence to a beech, thence to a row of ashes;
Whilst through the quagmires, and red water plashes,
The boys run dabbling thorough thick and thin;
One tears his hose, another breaks his shin,
This, torn and tatter'd, hath with much ado
Got by the briars; and that hath lost his shoe;
This drops his band; that headlong falls for haste;
Another cries behind for being last;
With sticks and stones, and many a sounding holloa,
The little fool, with no small sport, they follow,
Whilst he, from tree to tree, from spray to spray,
Gets to the wood, and hides him in his dray:
Such shift made Riot ere he could get up,
And so from bough to bough he won the top,
Though hindrances, for ever coming there,
Were often thrust upon him by Despair.
Now at his feet the stately mountain lay,
And with a gladsome eye he 'gan survey
What perils he had trod on since the time
His weary feet and arms assayed to climb.
When with a humble voice, withouten fear,
Though he look'd wild and overgrown with hair,
A gentle nymph, in russet coarse array,
Comes and directs him onward in his way.
First, brings she him into a goodly hall,
Fair, yet not beautified with mineral:
But in a careless art and artless care
Made loose neglect more lovely far than rare.
Upon the floor ypav'd with marble slate,
With sack-cloth cloth'd, many in ashes sat;
And round about the walls for many years
Hung crystal vials of repentant tears;
And books of vows, and many a heavenly deed
Lay ready open for each one to read.
Some were immured up in little sheds,
There to contemplate heaven, and bid their beads;
Others with garments thin of camel's hair,
With head, and arms, and legs, and feet all bare,
Were singing hymns to the Eternal Sage,
For safe returning from their pilgrimage;
Some with a whip their pamper'd bodies beat;
Others in fasting live, and seldom eat:
But as those trees which do in India grow
And call'd of elder swains full long ago
The sun and moon's fair trees, full goodly dight,
And ten times ten feet challenging their height,
Having no help to overlook brave towers,
From cool refreshing dew, or drizzling showers,
When as the earth, as oftentimes is seen,
Is interpos'd 'twixt Sol and Night's pale queen;
Or when the moon eclipseth Titan's light,
The trees all comfortless robb'd of their sight
Weep liquid drops, which plentifully shoot
Along the outward bark down to the root,
And by their own shed tears they ever flourish,
So their own sorrows, their own joys do nourish:
And so within this place full many a wight
Did make his tears his food both day and night,
And had it g[r]anted from th' Almighty great
To swim through them unto his mercy-seat.
Fair Metanoia in a chair of earth,
With count'nance sad, yet sadness promis'd mirth,
Sat veil'd in coarsest weeds of camel's hair,
Enriching poverty; yet never fair
Was like to her, nor since the world begun
A lovelier lady kiss'd the glorious sun.
For her the god of thunder, mighty, great,
Whose footstool is the earth, and heaven his seat,
Unto a man who from his crying birth
Went on still shunning what he carried, earth,
When he could walk no further for his grave,
Nor could step over, but he there must have
A seat to rest, when he would fain go on,
But age in every nerve, in every bone
Forbad his passage: for her sake hath Heaven
Fill'd up the grave, and made his path so even
That fifteen courses had the bright steeds run,
(And he was weary) ere his course was done.
For scorning her the courts of kings which throw
A proud rais'd pinnacle to rest the crow,
And on a plain outbrave a neighbour rock
In stout resistance of a tempest's shock,
For her contempt Heaven, raining his disasters,
Have made those towers but piles to burn their masters.