2.
When God did Man to his own Likeness make,
As much as Clay, though of the purest kind,
By the great Potters Art refin’d,
Could the Divine Impression take:
He thought it fit to place him, where
A kind of Heav’n 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 Humane Life,
He gave him the first Gift; first, ev’n before a Wife.
3.
For God, the universal Architect,
’T had been as easie to erect
A Louvre, or Escurial, or a Tower,
That might with Heav’n communication hold
As Babel vainly thought to do of old:
He wanted not the skill or power,
In the World’s Fabrick those were shown,
And the Materials were all his own.
But well he knew what place would best agree
With Innocence, and with Felicity:
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 judgement in the search direct;
God the first Garden made, and the first City, Cain.
4.
O blessed Shades! O gentle cool retreat
From all th’ immoderate Heat,
In which the frantick World does burn and sweat!
This does the Lion Star, Ambitions rage;
This Avarice, the Dog-Stars Thirst asswage;
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;
Whil’st 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 walk below,
And should by right be Singers too.
What Princes Quire of Musick 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 Base the murmuring Fountains play;
Nature does all this Harmony bestow,
But to our Plants, Arts, Musick too,
The Pipe, Theorbo, and Guitar we owe;
The Lute it self, which once was Green and Mute:
When Orpheus struck th’ inspired Lute,
The Trees danc’d round, and understood
By Sympathy the Voice of Wood.
5.
These are the Spells that to kind Sleep invite,
And nothing does within resistance make,
Which yet we moderately take;
Who wou’d not choose to be awake,
While he’s incompass’d round with such delight,
To th’ Ear, the Nose, the Touch, the Taste, and Sight?
When Venus wou’d her dear Ascanius keep
A Pris’ner in the downy Bands of Sleep,
She od’rous 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 Jasmin dwell,
Rather than all his Spirits choak
With Exhalations of Dirt and Smoak?
And all th’ uncleanness which does drown
In pestilential Clouds a pop’lous Town?
The Earth it self breaths better Perfumes here,
Than all the Female Men or Women there,
Not without cause about them bear.
When Epicurus to the World had taught,
That Pleasure was the Chiefest Good,
(And was perhaps i’th’ right, if rightly understood)
His Life he to his Doctrine brought,
And in a Gardens Shade that Sovereign Pleasure sought.
Whoever a true Epicure would be,
May there find cheap and virtuous Luxury.
Vitellius his 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 Natures Liberality,
Helpt with a little Art and Industry,
Allows the meanest Gard’ners board.
The wanton Taste no Fish or Fowl can choose,
For which the Grape or Melon she would loose,
Though all th’ Inhabitants of Sea and Air
Be listed in the Gluttons Bill of Fare;
Yet still the Fruits of Earth we see
Plac’d the third Story high in all her Luxury.