WONDER

How like an angel came I down!

How bright are all things here!

When first among His works I did appear

O how their glory did me crown! The world resembled His eternity,

In which my soul did walk; And every thing that I did see Did with me talk.

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The skies in their magnificence,

ΙΟ

Oh how divine, how soft, how sweet, how fair!

The lively, lovely air,

The stars did entertain my sense;

And all the works of God so bright and pure,

So rich and great, did seem,

As if they ever must endure

In my esteem.

A native health and innocence

Within my bones did grow;

And while my God did all His glories show,

I felt a vigour in my sense

That was all spirit: I within did flow
With seas of life, like wine;

I nothing in the world did know
But 't was divine.

Harsh ragged objects were concealed:
Oppressions, tears, and cries,

Sins, griefs, complaints, dissensions, weeping eyes,
Were hid, and only things revealed

Which heavenly spirits and the angels prize;
The state of innocence

And bliss, not trades and poverties,
Did fill my sense.

The streets were paved with golden stones;
The boys and girls were mine:

Oh, how did all their lovely faces shine!
The sons of men were holy ones;

In joy and beauty they appeared to me.

And every thing which here I found, While like an angel I did see,

Adorned the ground.

Rich diamond and pearl and gold

In every place was seen;

Rare splendours, yellow, blue, red, white, and green,

Mine eyes did everywhere behold;

Great wonders clothed with glory did appear.

Amazement was my bliss;

That and my wealth was everywhere;

No joy to this!

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45

Curst and devised proprieties,

With envy, avarice,

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And fraud, those fiends that spoil even Paradise,

Flew from the splendour of mine eyes:

And so did hedges, ditches, limits, bounds;

I dreamed not aught of those,

But wandered over all men's grounds,
And found repose.

Proprieties themselves were mine,

And hedges ornaments;

Walls, boxes, coffers, and their rich contents

Did not divide my joys, but all combine.
Clothes, ribbons, jewels, laces, I esteemed
My joys by others worn;

For me they all to wear them seemed,
When I was born.

About 1660?

1903.

SIR JOHN DENHAM

FROM

COOPER'S HILL

Thames, the most loved of all the Ocean's sons
By his old sire, to his embraces runs,

Hasting to pay his tribute to the sea,

Like mortal life to meet eternity;

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бо

Though with those streams he no resemblance hold
Whose foam is amber and their gravel gold.
His genuine and less guilty wealth t' explore,
Search not his bottom but survey his shore,
O'er which he kindly spreads his gracious wing,
And hatches plenty for th' ensuing spring;
Nor then destroys it with too fond a stay,
Like mothers which their infants overlay,
Nor, with a sudden and impetuous wave,

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ΙΟ

Like profuse kings, resumes the wealth he gave.
No unexpected inundations spoil

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The mower's hopes nor mock the ploughman's toil,
But godlike his unwearied bounty flows;

First loves to do, then loves the good he does.

Nor are his blessings to his banks confined,

But free and common as the sea or wind,
When he to boast or to disperse his stores,
Full of the tributes of his grateful shores,
Visits the world, and in his flying towers

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Brings home to us and makes both Indies ours,

Finds wealth where 't is, bestows it where it wants,
Cities in deserts, woods in cities plants;

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So that to us no thing, no place is strange,

While his fair bosom is the world's exchange.

O, could I flow like thee, and make thy stream

My great example, as it is my theme!

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Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not dull;
Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full.
Heav'n her Eridanus no more shall boast,
Whose fame in thine, like lesser current, 's lost:
Thy nobler streams shall visit Jove's abodes,
To shine among the stars and bathe the gods.
Here Nature, whether more intent to please
Us or herself with strange varieties

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(For things of wonder give no less delight
To the wise maker's than beholder's sight;
Though these delights from sev'ral causes move,
For so our children, thus our friends, we love),
Wisely she knew the harmony of things,
As well as that of sounds, from discord springs.

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Such was the discord which did first disperse
Form, order, beauty, through the universe:
While dryness moisture, coldness heat resists,
All that we have, and that we are, subsists,
While the steep horrid roughness of the wood
Strives with the gentle calmness of the flood.
Such huge extremes when Nature doth unite,
Wonder from thence results, from thence delight.
The stream is so transparent, pure, and clear,
That had the self-enamoured youth gazed here,
So fatally deceived he had not been,
While he the bottom, not his face, had seen.
But his proud head the airy mountain hides
Among the clouds; his shoulders and his sides
A shady mantle clothes; his curlèd brows
Frown on the gentle stream, which calmly flows,
While winds and storms his lofty forehead beat—
The common fate of all that's high or great.
Low at his foot a spacious plain is placed,
Between the mountain and the stream embraced,
Which shade and shelter from the hill derives,
While the kind river wealth and beauty gives;
And in the mixture of all these appears
Variety, which all the rest endears.

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65

This scene had some bold Greek or British bard

Beheld of old, what stories had we heard

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Of fairies, satyrs, and the nymphs, their dames,
Their feasts, their revels, and their am'rous flames?
'Tis still the same, although their airy shape
All but a quic.: poetic sight escape.

There Faunus and Sylvanus keep their courts;
And thither all the hornèd host resorts
To graze the ranker mead—that noble herd,
On whose sublime and shady fronts is reared
Nature's great masterpiece, to show how soon
Great things are made but sooner are undone.

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80

1642.

ABRAHAM COWLEY

FROM

A VOTE

This only grant me: that my means may lie
Too low for envy, for contempt too high.
Some honour I would have,

Not from great deeds but good alone;
Th' unknown are better than ill known:

Rumour can ope the grave.

Acquaintance I would have, but when 't depends
Not on the number but the choice of friends.

Books should, not business, entertain the light;

And sleep, as undisturbed as death, the night:

My house a cottage more

Than palace, and should fitting be

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ΙΟ

For all my use, no luxury:

My garden painted o'er

With Nature's hand, not Art's, and pleasures yield
Horace might envy in his Sabine field.

15

Thus would I double my life's fading space,

For he that runs it well twice runs his race.
And in this true delight,

These unbought sports, this happy staie,
I would nor fear nor wish my fate,

But boldly say each night,

"To-morrow let my sun his beams display

Or in clouds hide them, I have lived to-day."

1636.

THE SPRING

Though you be absent here, I needs must say
The trees as beauteous are, and flowers as gay,
As ever they were wont to be;
Nay, the birds' rural music, too,
Is as melodious and free

As if they sung to pleasure you:

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