Mistaken long, I sought you then
In busy companies of men.

Your sacred plants, if here below,
Only among the plants will grow :
Society is all but rude

To this delicious solitude.

No white nor red was ever seen So amorous as this lovely green. Fond lovers, cruel as their flame, Cut in these trees their mistress' name: Little, alas! they know or heed How far these beauties her exceed! Fair trees! where'er your barks I wound, No name shall but your own be found.

When we have run our passion's heat,
Love hither makes his best retreat.
The gods, who mortal beauty chase,
Still in a tree did end their race;
Apollo hunted Daphne so,

Only that she might laurel grow;
And Pan did after Syrinx speed,
Not as a nymph, but for a reed.

What wondrous life is this I lead!
Ripe apples drop about my head;
The luscious clusters of the vine
Upon my mouth do crush their wine;
The nectarine, and curious peach,
Into my hands themselves do reach;
Stumbling on melons, as I pass,
Insnared with flowers, I fall on grass.

Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less, Withdraws into its happiness,

The mind, that ocean where each kind
Does straight its own resemblance find,
Yet it creates, transcending these,
Far other worlds and other seas,
Annihilating all that's made

To a green thought in a green shade.

Here at the fountain's sliding foot.
Or at some fruit-tree's mossy root,
Casting the body's vest aside,
My soul into the boughs does glide:
There, like a bird, it sits and sings,
Then whets and claps its silver wings,
And, till prepared for longer flight,
Waves in its plumes the various light.

Such was that happy garden-state, While man there walked without a mate : After a place so pure and sweet, What other help could yet be meet! But 't was beyond a mortal's share To wander solitary there: Two paradises are in one, To live in paradise alone.

How well the skilful gardener drew Of flowers and herbs this dial new, Where, from above, the milder sun Does through a fragrant zodiac run, And, as it works, the industrious bee Computes its time as well as we!

How could such sweet and wholesome hours Be reckoned but with herbs and flowers?

A HORATIAN ODE

UPON CROMWELL'S RETURN FROM IRELAND.

HE forward youth that would appear,
Must now forsake his muses dear,
Nor in the shadows sing

His numbers languishing :

"T is time to leave the books in dust,
And oil the unused armor's rust,
Removing from the wall

The corselet of the hall.
So restless Cromwell could not cease
In the inglorious arts of peace,
But through adventurous war
Urgéd his active star;

And, like the three-forked lightning, first
Breaking the clouds where it was nurst,
Did thorough his own side

His fiery way divide

(For 't is all one to courage high,

The emulous, or enemy,

And with such to enclose,

Is more than to oppose); Then burning through the air he went, And palaces and temples rent;

And Cæsar's head at last

Did through his laurels blast.

"T is madness to resist or blame
The force of angry heaven's flame;
And if we would speak true,
Much to the man is due,

Who from his private gardens, where

He lived reservéd and austere,

As if his highest plot

To plant the bergamot, Could by industrious valor climb To ruin the great work of Time, And cast the kingdoms old Into another mould.

Though Justice against Fate complain, And plead the ancient rights in vain (But those do hold or break,

As men are strong or weak,)
Nature, that hateth emptiness,
Allows of penetration less,

And therefore must make room
Where greater spirits come.

What field of all the civil war,
Where his were not the deepest scar?
And Hampton shows what part
He had of wiser art;
Where, twining subtile fears with hope,
He wove a net of such a scope

That Charles himself might chase

To Carisbrook's narrow case;

That thence the royal actor borne

The tragic scaffold might adorn: