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,

Whoever a true epicure would be,

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

Helped 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 th' 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.

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

The body's virtue and the soul's good-fortune,

health.

The tree of life, when it in Eden stood,
Did its immortal head to Heaven rear;
It lasted a tall cedar, till the flood;
Now a small thorny shrub it does appear;
Nor will it thrive too everywhere:
It always here is freshest seen,
"Tis only here an evergreen.

If, through the strong and beauteous fence
Of temperance and innocence,
And wholesome labors, and a quiet mind,
Any diseases passage find,

They must not think here to assail

A land unarmed or without a guard;
They must fight for it, and dispute it hard,

Before they can prevail :

Scarce any plant is growing here,

Which against death some weapon does not bear.

Let cities boast that they provide
For life the ornaments of pride;
But 'tis the country and the field,

That furnish it with staff and shield.

Where does the wisdom and the power divine
In a more bright and sweet reflection shine?
Where do we finer strokes and colors see
Of the Creator's real poetry,

Than when we with attention look
Upon the third day's volume of the book?
If we could open and intend our eye,
We all, like Moses, should espy
Even in a bush the radiant Deity.

But we despise these, his inferior ways,
(Though no less full of miracle and praise.)
Upon the flowers of Heaven we gaze;
The stars of Earth no wonder in us raise;
Though these perhaps do, more than they,
The life of mankind sway.

Although no part of mighty Nature be
More stored with beauty, power, and mystery;
Yet, to encourage human industry,

God has so ordered, that no other part

Such space and such dominion leaves for Art.

We nowhere Art do so triumphant see,
As when it grafts or buds the tree.
In other things we count it to excel,
If it a docile scholar can appear
To Nature, and but imitate her well;

It overrules and is her master, here.

It imitates her Maker's power divine,

And changes her sometimes, and sometimes does refine.

It does, like grace, the fallen tree restore

To its blest state of Paradise before.

Who would not joy to see his conquering hand

O'er all the vegetable world command?
And the wild giants of the wood receive
What law he's pleased to give?

He bids th' ill-natured crab produce
The gentle apple's winy juice,

The golden fruit that worthy is
Of Galatea's purple kiss.

He does the savage hawthorn teach
To bear the medlar and the pear;
He bids the rustic plum to rear
A noble trunk, and be a peach.
Ev'n Daphne's coyness he does mock,
And weds the cherry to her stock,
Though she refused Apollo's suit;
Even she, that chaste and virgin tree,
Now wonders at herself, to see

That she's a mother made, and blushes in her fruit.
Methinks I see great Dioclesian walk
In the Salonian garden's noble shade,
Which by his own imperial hands was made.
I see him smile, methinks, as he does talk
With the ambassadors, who come in vain
T'entice him to a throne again.

"If I, my friends," said he, "should to you show All the delights which in these gardens grow,

While such pure joys my bliss create,
Who but would smile at guilty state?
Who but would wish his holy lot
In calm oblivion's humble grot?
Who but would cast his pomp away,
To take my staff, and amice gray,
And to the world's tumultuous stage
Prefer the blameless hermitage?

THOMAS WARTON.

The Retirement.

FAREWELL, thou busy world, and may
We never meet again;

Here I can eat, and sleep, and pray,
And do more good in one short day,
Than he who his whole age out-wears
Upon the most conspicuous theatres,
Where nought but vanity and vice appears.

Good God! how sweet are all things here! How beautiful the fields appear!

How cleanly do we feed and lie! Lord! what good hours do we keep! How quietly we sleep!

What peace, what unanimity! How innocent from the lewd fashion, Is all our business, all our recreation!

Oh, how happy here's our leisure!
Oh, how innocent our pleasure!
O ye valleys! O ye mountains!
O ye groves, and crystal fountains!
How I love, at liberty,

By turns to come and visit ye!

Dear solitude, the soul's best friend,
That man acquainted with himself dost make,
And all his Maker's wonders to intend.

With thee I here converse at will,
And would be glad to do so still,

For it is thou alone that keep'st the soul awake.

How calm and quiet a delight

Is it, alone

To read, and meditate, and write,

By none offended, and offending none! To walk, ride, sit, or sleep at one's own ease; And, pleasing a man's self, none other to displease.

O my beloved nymph, fair Dove,
Princess of rivers, how I love

Upon thy flowery banks to lie,
And view thy silver stream,
When gilded by a Summer's beam!
And in it all thy wanton fry
Playing at liberty,

And, with my angle, upon them,
The all of treachery

I ever learned industriously to try!

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Such streams Rome's yellow Tiber cannot show, The Iberian Tagus, or Ligurian Po;

The Maese, the Danube, and the Rhine,

Are puddle-water, all, compared with thine; And Loire's pure streams yet too polluted

are

With thine, much purer, to compare ;

The rapid Garonne and the winding Seine Are both too mean,

Beloved Dove, with thee

To vie priority;

Nay, Tame and Isis, when conjoined, submit, And lay their trophies at thy silver feet.

O my beloved rocks, that rise

To awe the earth and brave the skies!
From some aspiring mountain's crown

How dearly do I love,

Giddy with pleasure, to look down;

And, from the vales, to view the noble heights

above;

O my beloved caves! from dog-star's heat,
And all anxieties, my safe retreat;
What safety, privacy, what true delight,
In the artificial night

Your gloomy entrails make,
Have I taken, do I take!

How oft, when grief has made me fly,
To hide me from society

E'en of my dearest friends, have I,

In your recesses' friendly shade,
All my sorrows open laid,

And my most secret woes intrusted to your pri vacy!

Lord! would men let me alone, What an over-happy one

WHEN o'er the mountain steeps

The hazy noontide creeps,
And the shrill cricket sleeps

Under the grass;

When soft the shadows lie,

And clouds sail o'er the sky,
And the idle winds go by,

With the heavy scent of blossoms as they pass;

Then, when the silent stream Lapses as in a dream,

And the water-lilies gleam

Up to the sun;

When the hot and burdened day Stops on its downward way, When the moth forgets to play,

Hymn to Pan.

O THOU, whose mighty palace roof doth hang
From jagged trunks, and overshadoweth
Eternal whispers, glooms, the birth, life, death
of unseen flowers in heavy peacefulness;
Who lovest to see the Hamadryads dress

Their ruffled locks where meeting hazels darken; And through whole solemn hours dost sit and hearken

The dreary melody of bedded reeds

In desolate places, where dank moisture breeds
The pipy hemlock to strange overgrowth,
Bethinking thee, how melancholy loth
Thou wast to lose fair Syrinx,-do thou now,
By thy love's milky brow,

By all the trembling mazes that she ran,

done;

Then, from the noise of war

And the din of earth afar,

Like some forgotten star

Dropt from the sky;

With the sounds of love and fear,
All voices sad and dear,
Banished to silence drear,

The willing thrall of trances sweet I lie.

Some melancholy gale Breathes its mysterious tale, Till the rose's lips grow pale With her sighs;

O thou, for whose soul-soothing quiet, turtles Passion their voices cooingly 'mong myrtles, What time thou wanderest at eventide Through sunny meadows, that outskirt the side Of thine enmossed realms! O thou, to whom Broad-leaved fig-trees even now foredoom Their ripened fruitage; yellow-girted bees Their golden honeycombs; our village leas Their fairest blossomed beans and poppied corn; The chuckling linnet its five young unborn, To sing for thee; low-creeping strawberries Their summer coolness; pent-up butterflies Their freckled wings; yea, the fresh-budding year All its completions-be quickly near,

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By every wind that nods the mountain pine, O forester divine!

Thou to whom every faun and satyr flies
For willing service; whether to surprise
The squatted hare while in half-sleeping fit;
Or upward ragged precipices flit

To save poor lambkins from the eagle's maw;
Or by mysterious enticement draw
Bewildered shepherds to their path again;
Or to tread breathless round the frothy main,
And gather up all fancifullest shells
For thee to tumble into Naiads' cells,

And, being hidden, laugh at their out-peeping;
Or to delight thee with fantastic leaping,
The while they pelt each other on the crown
With silvery oak-apples, and fir-cones brown-
By all the echoes that about thee ring,
Hear us, O satyr king!

O Hearkener to the loud-clapping shears,
While ever and anon to his shorn peers
A ram goes bleating! Winder of the horn,
When snouted wild-boars, routing tender corn,
Anger our huntsmen! Breather round our farms,
To keep off mildews, and all weather harms!
Strange ministrant of undescribed sounds,
That come a-swooning over hollow grounds,
And wither drearily on barren moors!
Dread opener of the mysterious doors
Leading to universal knowledge-see,
Great son of Dryope,

The many that are come to pay their vows
With leaves about their brows!

Be still the unimaginable lodge For solitary thinkings-such as dodge Conception to the very bourne of heaven, Then leave the naked brain; be still the leaven That, spreading in this dull and clodded earth, Gives it a touch ethereal, a new birth; Be still a symbol of immensity; A firmament reflected in a sea;

An element filling the space between;

An unknown-but no more: we humbly screen
With uplift hands our foreheads, lowly bending,
And, giving out a shout most heaven-rending,
Conjure thee to receive our humble pæan,
Upon thy Mount Lycean!

JOHN KEATS.