Come live with me, and be my love, <br /> And we will some new pleasures prove <br /> Of golden sands, and crystal brooks, <br /> With silken lines, and silver hooks. <br /> <br /> There will the river whispering run <br /> Warm'd by thy eyes, more than the sun; <br /> And there the 'enamour'd fish will stay, <br /> Begging themselves they may betray. <br /> <br /> When thou wilt swim in that live bath, <br /> Each fish, which every channel hath, <br /> Will amorously to thee swim, <br /> Gladder to catch thee, than thou him. <br /> <br /> If thou, to be so seen, be'st loth, <br /> By sun or moon, thou dark'nest both, <br /> And if myself have leave to see, <br /> I need not their light having thee. <br /> <br /> Let others freeze with angling reeds, <br /> And cut their legs with shells and weeds, <br /> Or treacherously poor fish beset, <br /> With strangling snare, or windowy net. <br /> <br /> Let coarse bold hands from slimy nest <br /> The bedded fish in banks out-wrest; <br /> Or curious traitors, sleeve-silk flies, <br /> Bewitch poor fishes' wand'ring eyes. <br /> <br /> For thee, thou need'st no such deceit, <br /> For thou thyself art thine own bait: <br /> That fish, that is not catch'd thereby, <br /> Alas, is wiser far than I.<br /><br />John Donne<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-bait/
