Changed: The Bait by John Donne

I credit this as the poem that started it all. And I mean really started it all. Few words have moved me as much as the opening ones of this one, and few poets have gotten me so enamored with them on the basis of one poem as John Donne. Reading this poem for the first time was like falling down the rabbit hole with no desire to stop the descent. Reading this poem made me decide that I wanted, with all my heart, to "do that."  http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173350

The Bait

BY JOHN DONNE

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.

There will the river whispering run

Warm'd by thy eyes, more than the sun;

And there the 'enamour'd fish will stay,

Begging themselves they may betray.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.