“The Angler’s Song,” from Izaak Walton’s The Compleat Angler (1653), with music by Henry Lawes. (An angler is a fisherman, and Walton’s book is a masterpiece of pacifist/royalist nostalgia disguised as a fishing manual.)

Man’s life is but vain, for ‘tis subject to pain,
And sorrow, and short as a bubble;
‘Tis a hodgepodge of business, and money, and care,
And care, and money, and trouble.
But we’ll take no care when the weather proves fair,
Nor will we vex now though it rain;
We’ll banish all sorrow, and sing till tomorrow,
And angle, and angle again.

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    “The Angler’s Song,” from Izaak Walton’s The Compleat Angler (1653), with music by Henry Lawes.

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