Explore "Ad Piscatorem" by Robert Louis Stevenson on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
FOR these are sacred fishes all / Who know that lord that is the lord of all; / Come to the brim and nose the friendly hand / That sways and can beshadow all the land.
Nor only so, but have their names, and come / When they are summoned by the Lord of Rome.
Here once his line an impious Lybian threw; / And as with tremulous reed his prey he drew, / Straight, the light failed him.
He groped, nor found the prey that he had ta'en.
Now as a warning to the fisher clan / Beside the lake he sits, a beggarman.
Thou, then, while still thine innocence is pure, / Flee swiftly, nor presume to set thy lure; / Respect these fishes, for their friends are great; / And in the waters empty all thy bait.