The Shepherd swains shall dance and sing,
For thy delight, each May morning;
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my love.


These are not the songs that fit the Delectable Country; nay,
rather they are the mirth of wantons. Yet didst thou take pleasure
in them; and therefore I make bold to ask how didst thou flee at
all from the City of Destruction, and come so far upon thy way?
Beware lest, when thou winnest to that brook wherein no man casts
angle, even to that flood where there is no bridge to go over and
the River is very deep--beware, I say, of one Vain Hope, the
Ferryman! For I would not have thee lost, because thou art a
kindly man and a simple. Yet for Ignorance there is an ill way,
even from the very gates of the City.--Thy fellow-traveller,

CHRISTIAN.


From Piscator to Christian.


Sir,--I do indeed remember thee; and I trust thou art amended of
these gripings which caused thee to groan and moan, even by the
pleasant streams from the hills of the Delectable Mountains. And
as for my "burden" 'twas pleasant to me to bear it; for, like not
the least of the Apostles, I am a fisher, and I carried trout. But
I take no shame in that I am an angler; for angling is somewhat
like poetry; men are to be born so, and I would not be otherwise