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- COME live with me, and be my love,
- And we will some new pleasures prove
- Of golden sands, and crystal brooks,
- With silken lines and silver hooks.
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- There will the river whisp'ring run
- Warm'd by thy eyes, more than the sun ;
- And there th' enamour'd fish will stay,
- Begging themselves they may betray.
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- When thou wilt swim in that live bath,
- Each fish, which every channel hath,
- Will amorously to thee swim,
- Gladder to catch thee, than thou him.
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- If thou, to be so seen, be'st loth,
- By sun or moon, thou dark'nest both,
- And if myself have leave to see,
- I need not their light, having thee.
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- Let others freeze with angling reeds,
- And cut their legs with shells and weeds,
- Or treacherously poor fish beset,
- With strangling snare, or windowy net.
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- Let coarse bold hands from slimy nest
- The bedded fish in banks out-wrest ;
- Or curious traitors, sleeve-silk flies,
- Bewitch poor fishes' wand'ring eyes.
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- For thee, thou need'st no such deceit,
- For thou thyself art thine own bait :
- That fish, that is not catch'd thereby,
- Alas ! is wiser far than I.
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- THE BAIT - John Donne (1572-1631)