How vainly men themselves amaze |
To win the palm, the oak, or bays, |
And their incessant labours see |
Crown’d from some single herb or tree, |
Whose short and narrow-vergéd shade |
Does prudently their toils upbraid; |
While all the flowers and trees do
close |
To weave the garlands of Repose.
|
Fair Quiet, have I found thee here, |
And Innocence thy sister dear? |
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, |
Ensnared 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 walk’d 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 dial new! |
Where, from above, the milder sun |
Does through a fragrant zodiac run: |
And, as it works, th’industrious bee |
Computes its time as well as we. |
How could such sweet and wholesome
hours |
Be reckon’d, but with herbs and
flowers!
|
Andrew
Marvell |
Classic Poems |
|
[ An Horation Ode ] [ Song of the Emigrants in Bermuda ] [ Thoughts in a Garden ] [ To His Coy Mistress ] |