The fairest garden in her looks,

And in her mind the wisest books.

Oh, who would change these soft, yet solid joys, For empty shows, and senseless noise,

And all which rank ambition breeds,

Which seem such beauteous flowers, and are such poisonous weeds?

II.

When God did man to his own likeness make,
As much as clay, though of the purest kind,
By the great potter's art refined,
Could the divine impression take,
He thought it fit to place him, where
A kind of heaven too did appear,
As far as earth could such a likeness bear :
That man no happiness might want,
Which earth to her first master could afford,
He did a garden for him plant

By the quick hand of his omnipotent word.
As the chief help and joy of human life,

He gave him the first gift; first, ev'n before a wife.

III.

For God, the universal architect,

'T had been as easy to erect A Louvre or Escurial, or a tower

That might with heaven communication hold,
As Babel, vainly thought to do of old.

He wanted not the skill or power;

In the world's fabric those were shown,
And the materials were all his own.

But well he knew, what place would best agree
With innocence, and with felicity:

E

And we elsewhere still seek for them in vain ;
If any part of either yet remain,

If any part of either we expect,

This may our judgment in the search direct;
God the first garden made, and the first city Cain.

IV.

O blessed shades! O gentle cool retreat
From all the immoderate heat,

In which the frantic world does burn and sweat!
This does the lion-star, ambition's rage;

This avarice, the dog-star's thirst assuage;
Every where else their fatal power we see,
They make and rule man's wretched destiny:
They neither set, nor disappear,

But tyrannize o'er all the year;

Whilst we ne'er feel their flame or influence here. The birds that dance from bough to bough,

And sing above in every tree,

Are not from fears and cares more free,
Than we, who lie, or sit, or walk below,
And should by right be singers too.
What prince's choir of music can excel

That, which within this shade does dwell?
To which we nothing pay or give :
They, like all other poets, live

Without reward, or thanks for their obliging pains: "Tis well if they become not prey:

The whistling winds add their less artful strains, And a grave bass the murmuring fountains play : Nature does all this harmony bestow,

But to our plants, art's music too,

The pipe, theorbo, and guitar we owe.

The lute itself, which once was green and mute, When Orpheus strook the inspired lute, The trees danced round, and understood By sympathy the voice of wood.

V.

These are the spells, that to kind sleep invite,
And nothing does within resistance make,
Which yet we moderately take;

Who would not choose to be awake,

While he's encompass'd round with such delight,
To the ear, the nose, the touch, the taste, and sight?
When Venus would her dear Ascanius keep *
A prisoner in the downy bands of sleep,

She odorous herbs and flowers beneath him spread,
-As the most soft and sweetest bed:

Not her own lap would more have charm'd his head.
Who, that has reason, and his smell,

Would not among roses and jasmine dwell,
Rather than all his spirits choke
With exhalations of dirt and smoke,

And all the uncleanness, which does drown,
In pestilential clouds, a populous town?
The earth itself breathes better perfumes here,
Than all the female men, or women, there,
Not without cause, about them bear.

VI.

When Epicurus to the world had taught,
That pleasure was the chiefest good,

Virg. Æn. i. 695.

(And was, perhaps, i'th' right,* if rightly understood) His life he to his doctrine brought,

And in a garden's shade that sovereign pleasure sought:

Whoever a true epicure would be,

May there find cheap and virtuous luxury.
Vitellius's table, which did hold

Aş many creatures as the ark of old;
That fiscal table, to which every day
All countries did a constant tribute pay,
Could nothing more delicious afford
Than nature's liberality,

Help'd with a little art and industry,
Allows the meanest gardener's board.
The wanton taste no fish or fowl can choose,
For which the grape or melon she would lose;
Though all the inhabitants of sea and air
Be listed in the glutton's bill of fare,

Yet still the fruits of earth we see
Placed the third story† high in all her luxury.

VII.

But with no sense the garden does comply,
None courts or flatters, as it does the eye.

[-was, perhaps, i'th' right.] The author had seen Gassendi's fine work on this subject.-Hurd.

t [Placed the third story.] i. e. in the dessert, which stands as the third story in the fabric of modern luxury. But with no sense the garden does comply,

None courts or flatters, as it does the eye.]A little ob scurely expressed. The meaning is The garden gratifies no sense, it courts and flatters none, so much as it does the eye.-Hurd.

When the great Hebrew king did almost strain
The wondrous treasures of his wealth and brain,
His royal southern guest to entertain;

Though she on silver floors did tread,
With bright Assyrian carpets on them spread,
To hide the metal's poverty;

Though she look'd up to roofs of gold,
And nought around her could behold,
But silk and rich embroidery,

And Babylonish tapestry,

And wealthy Hiram's princely dye;

Though Ophir's starry stones met every where her

eye;

Though she herself and her gay host were dress'd
With all the shining glories of the East;
When slavish art her costly work had done,
The honour and the prize of bravery
Was by the garden from the palace won;
And every rose and lily there did stand

Better attired by nature's hand :*

The case thus judged against the king we see, By one, that would not be so rich, though wiser far than he.

VIII.

Nor does this happy place only dispense
Such various pleasures to the sense;

Here health itself does live,

That salt of life, which does to all a relish give,
Its standing pleasure, and intrinsic wealth,

The body's virtue, and the soul's good fortune, health.

• Matth. vi. 29.