A Book Trout Poem

THE BAITE

Come live with mee, and bee my love,

And wee will some new pleasures prove,

Of golden sands, and christall brookes,

With silken lines, and silver hookes.

There will the river whispering runne

Warm’d by thy eyes, more than the Sunne,

And there the’inamored fish will stay,

Begging themselves they may betray.

When thou wilt swimme in that live bath,

Each fish, which every channel hath,

Will amorously to thee swimme,

Gladder to catch thee, than thou him.

If thou, to be so seene, beest loath,

By Sunne, or Moone, thous darknest both,

And if my selfe have leave to see,

I need not their light, having thee.

Let others freeze with angling reeds,

And cut their legges, with shells and weeds,

Or treacherously poore fish beset,

With strangling snare, or windowie net:

Let coarse bold hands, from slimy nest

The bedded fish in banks out-wrest,

Or curious traitors, sleavesilke flies

Bewitch poore fishes wandring eyes.

For thee, thous needst no such deceit,

For thou thy selfe art thine owne baite;

That fish, that is not catch’d thereby,

Alas, is wiser farre than I.

-John Donne