Fair trees! wheres'e'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, that 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 1 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
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 combs 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 'twas beyond a mortal's share
To wander solitary there:
Two paradises 'twere in one, To live in paradise alone.
How well the skilful gardener drew Of flowers, and herbs, this dial2 new; Where, from above, the milder sun Does through a fragrant zodiac run, And, as it works, the industrious bee
1 rare, exotic 2 a bed of various flowers which, opening at successive hours, indicate the time of day
Computes its time as well as we !
How could such sweet and wholesome hours Be reckoned but with herbs and flowers? 72
Had we but world enough, and time, This coyness, Lady, were no crime, We would sit down and think which way To walk and pass our long love's day. Thou by the Indian Ganges' side Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide Of Humber would complain. I would Love you ten years before the Flood, And you should, if you please, refuse Till the conversion of the Jews. My vegetable love should grow Vaster than empires, and more slow; An hundred years should go to praise Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze; Two hundred to adore each breast, But thirty thousand to the rest; An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart. For, Lady, you deserve this state, Nor would I love at lower rate.
But at my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near; And yonder all before us lie Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found, Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try That long preserved virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust, And into ashes all my lust:
The grave's a fine and private place, But none, I think, do there embrace. Now therefore, while the youthful hue Sits on thy skin like morning dew, And while thy willing soul transpires At every pore with instant fires, Now let us sport us while we may, And now, like amorous birds of prey, Rather at once our time devour
HENRY VAUGHAN (1622-1695)
Happy those early days, when I Shined in my angel-infancy! Before I understood this place Appointed for my second race, Or taught my soul to fancy ought But a white, celestial thought; When yet I had not walked above A mile or two from my first love, And looking back — at that short space Could see a glimpse of His bright face; When on some gilded cloud or flower My gazing soul would dwell an hour, And in those weaker glories spy Some shadows of eternity;
Before I taught my tongue to wound My conscience with a sinful sound, Or had the black art to dispense, A several sin to every sense, But felt through all this fleshly dress Bright shoots of everlastingness.
O how I long to travel back, And tread again that ancient track! That I might once more reach that plain, Where first I left my glorious train; From whence the enlightened spirit sees That shady city of palm trees. But ah! my soul with too much stay Is drunk, and staggers in the way! Some men a forward motion love, But I by backward steps would move; And when this dust falls to the urn, In that state I came, return.
I saw Eternity the other night,
Like a great ring of pure and endless light, All calm, as it was bright;
FROM ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL
Of these the false Achitophel1 was first, A name to all succeeding ages curst: For close 2 designs and crooked counsels fit, Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit,3 Restless, unfixed in principles and place, In power unpleased, impatient of disgrace: 155 A fiery soul, which, working out its way, Fretted the pigmy body to decay
And o'er-informed the tenement of clay. A daring pilot in extremity,
Pleased with the danger, when the waves went
He sought the storms; but, for a calm unfit, Would steer too nigh the sands to boast his
Great wits are sure to madness near allied And thin partitions do their bounds divide; Else, why should he, with wealth and honour blest,
Refuse his age the needful hours of rest? Punish a body which he could not please, Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease? And all to leave what with his toil he won To that unfeathered two-legg'd thing, a son. 170
A numerous host of dreaming saints succeed Of the true old enthusiastic breed: 'Gainst form and order they their power employ,
Nothing to build and all things to destroy. But far more numerous was the herd of such Who think too little and who talk too much. These out of mere instinct, they knew not why,
Adored their fathers' God and property, 536 And by the same blind benefit of Fate The Devil and the Jebusite did hate: Born to be saved even in their own despite, Because they could not help believing right. 540
Such were the tools; but a whole Hydra1 more Remains of sprouting heads too long to score. Some of their chiefs were princes of the land; In the first rank of these did Zimri 2 stand, A man so various that he seemed to be Not one, but all mankind's epitome: Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong, Was everything by starts and nothing long; But in the course of one revolving moon Was chymist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon; Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drink- ing, 551
Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking.
Blest madman, who could every hour employ With something new to wish or to enjoy! Railing and praising were his usual themes, 555 And both, to show his judgment, in extremes: So over violent or over civil
That every man with him was God or Devil. In squandering wealth was his peculiar art; Nothing went unrewarded but desert. 560 Beggared by fools whom still he found too late,
Their earthly mould obnoxious was to fate, The immortal part assumed immortal state. Of these a slaughtered army lay in blood, Extended o'er the Caledonian 1 wood, Their native walk; whose vocal blood arose 15 And cried for pardon on their perjured foes. Their fate was fruitful, and the sanguine seed, Endued with souls, increased the sacred breed. So captive Israel multiplied in chains,
A numerous exile, and enjoyed her pains. 20 With grief and gladness mixed, their mother viewed
Her martyred offspring and their race renewed;
Their corps to perish, but their kind to last, So much the deathless plant the dying fruit surpassed.
Panting and pensive now she ranged alone, And wandered in the kingdoms once her own. The common hunt, though from their rage restrained
By sovereign power, her company disdained, Grinned as they passed, and with a glaring eye Gave gloomy signs of secret enmity. 'Tis true she bounded by and tripped so light, They had not time to take a steady sight; For truth has such a face and such a mien As to be loved needs only to be seen.
The bloody Bear, an Independent beast 35 Unlicked to form,2 in groans her hate expressed. Among the timorous kind the quaking Hare Professed neutrality, but would not swear. Next her the buffoon Ape, as atheists use,3 39 Mimicked all sects and had his own to choose; Still when the Lion looked, his knees he bent, And paid at church a courtier's compliment. The bristled Baptist Boar, impure as he, But whitened with the foam of sanctity, With fat pollutions filled the sacred place, 45 And mountains levelled in his furious race: So first rebellion founded was in grace. But, since the mighty ravage which he made In German forests had his guilt betrayed, With broken tusks and with a borrowed name, He shunned the vengeance and concealed the shame, 51
So lurked in sects unseen. With greater guile False Reynard fed on consecrated spoil; The graceless beast by Athanasius first Was chased from Nice, then by Socinus nursed,
1 Scottish 2 Bear cubs are said to be shapeless lumps until licked into shape by the mother bear 3 are accustomed at Münster
His impious race their blasphemy renewed, 56 And nature's king through nature's optics viewed;
Reversed they viewed him lessened to their eye,
Nor in an infant could a God descry.
New swarming sects to this obliquely tend, 60 Hence they began, and here they all will end.
But if they think at all, 'tis sure no higher 316 Than matter put in motion may aspire; Souls that can scarce ferment their mass of clay,
So drossy, so divisible are they
As would but serve pure bodies for allay,1 320 Such souls as shards 2 produce, such beetle things
As only buzz to heaven with evening wings, Strike in the dark, offending but by chance, Such are the blindfold blows of ignorance. They know not beings, and but hate a name; To them the Hind and Panther are the same.
And seems to shake the spheres.
With ravished ears
The monarch hears,
The praise of Bacchus then the sweet musician
Of Bacchus ever fair, and ever young.
The jolly god in triumph comes;
Sound the trumpets, beat the drums ;50 Flushed with a purple grace
He shows his honest face:
Now give the hautboys breath; he comes,
Bacchus, ever fair and young,
Drinking joys did first ordain; Bacchus' blessings are a treasure, Drinking is the soldier's pleasure; Rich the treasure, Sweet the pleasure, Sweet is pleasure after pain.
1 a celebrated Athenian musician (d. 357 B.C.), said to have improved the cithara by adding one string to it 2 fabled to have been Alexander's father 3 4 disguised uplifted in shining spirals 5 Olympias, mother of Alexander
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