Thomas Westwood

Walton's "Compleat Angler"

What, not a word for thee, O little tome?

Brown-jerkined, friendly-faced--of all my books

The one that wears the quaintest, kindliest looks--

Seems most completely, cosily at home,

Amongst its fellows. Ah! if thou couldst tell

Thy story--how, in sixteen fifty-three,

Good Master Marriot, standing at his door,

Saw anglers hurrying--fifty--nay, threescore,

To buy thee, ere noon pealed from Dunstan's bell:--

And how he stared and. . . shook his sides with glee.

One story, this, which fact or fiction weaves.

Meanwhile, adorn my shelf, beloved of all--

Old book! with lavender between thy leaves,

And twenty ballads round thee on the wall.

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