OF SOLITUDE

Hail, old patrician trees, so great and good!
Hail, ye plebeian underwood!

Where the poetic birds rejoice,

And for their quiet nests and plenteous food
Pay with their grateful voice.

Hail, the poor Muse's richest manor seat!

Ye country houses and retreat,

Which all the happy gods so love

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That for you oft they quit their bright and great

Metropolis above.

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Here Nature does a house for me erect,

Nature, the wisest architect,

Who those fond artists does despise

That can the fair and living trees neglect,
Yet the dead timber prize.

Here let me, careless and unthoughtful lying,
Hear the soft winds, above me flying,
With all their wanton boughs dispute,
And the more tuneful birds to both replying,
Nor be myself too mute.

A silver stream shall roll his waters near,
Gilt with the sunbeams here and there;
On whose enamelled bank I'll walk,
And see how prettily they smile, and hear
How prettily they talk.

Ah wretched and too solitary he

Who loves not his own company!

He'll feel the weight of 't many a day, Unless he call in sin or vanity

To help to bear 't away.

Oh Solitude, first state of humankind!
Which blest remained till man did find
Even his own helper's company:

As soon as two, alas, together joined,
The serpent made up three.

Though God Himself, through countless ages, thee

His sole companion chose to be,

Thee, sacred Solitude, alone,

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Before the branchy head of number's tree

Sprang from the trunk of One.

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Thou, though men think thine an unactive part,

Dost break and tame th' unruly heart,
Which else would know no settled pace,

Making it move, well managed by thy art,
With swiftness and with grace.

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Thou the faint beams of reason's scattered light

Dost, like a burning-glass, unite,

Dost multiply the feeble heat

And fortify the strength, till thou dost bright
And noble fires beget.

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Whilst this hard truth I teach, methinks I see
The monster London laugh at me;

I should at thee, too, foolish city,

If it were fit to laugh at misery,
But thy estate I pity.

Let but thy wicked men from out thee go,
And all the fools that crowd thee so,
Even thou, who dost thy millions boast,
A village less than Islington wilt grow,
A solitude almost.

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60

1668.

EDMUND WALLER

FROM

THE BATTLE OF THE SUMMER ISLANDS

Bermudas, walled with rocks, who does not know?
That happy island where huge lemons grow,
And orange trees which golden fruit do bear-
The Hesperian garden boasts of none so fair;

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Where shining pearl, coral, and many a pound,
On the rich shore, of ambergris is found.
The lofty cedar, which to heaven aspires,
The prince of trees, is fuel for their fires;

The smoke by which their loaded spits do turn,
For incense might on sacred altars burn;
Their private roofs on odorous timber borne,
Such as might palaces for kings adorn.
The sweet palmettos a new Bacchus yield,
With leaves as ample as the broadest shield;
Under the shadow of whose friendly boughs
They sit, carousing where their liquor grows.

Figs there, unplanted, through the fields do grow,
Such as fierce Cato did the Romans show,
With the rare fruit inviting them to spoil
Carthage, the mistress of so rich a soil.
The naked rocks are not unfruitful there;
But at some constant seasons, every year,
Their barren tops with luscious food abound,

And with the eggs of various fowls are crowned.
Tobacco is the worst of things, which they
To English landlords as their tribute pay.
Such is the mould that the blest tenant feeds
On precious fruits and pays his rent in weeds.
With candied plantains and the juicy pine,

On choicest melons and sweet grapes, they dine,
And with potatoes fat their wanton swine.
Nature these cates with such a lavish hand
Pours out among them that our coarser land
Tastes of that bounty, and does cloth return,
Which not for warmth but ornament is worn;
For the kind Spring, which but salutes us here,
Inhabits there, and courts them all the year.
Ripe fruits and blossoms on the same trees live;
At once they promise what at once they give.
So sweet the air, so moderate the clime,
None sickly lives, or dies before his time.

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Heaven sure has kept this spot of earth uncurst,
To show how all things were created first.
The tardy plants in our cold orchards placed
Reserve their fruit for the next age's taste;

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There a small grain in some few months will be

A firm, a lofty, and a spacious tree.

The palma-christi and the fair papaw,
Now but a seed, preventing nature's law,
In half the circle of the hasty year
Project a shade, and lovely fruit do wear.
And as their trees, in our dull region set,
But faintly grow and no perfection get,
So in this northern tract our hoarser throats
Utter unripe and ill-constrainèd notes,
Where the supporter of the poets' style,
Phoebus, on them eternally does smile.
Oh, how I long my careless limbs to lay
Under the plantain's shade, and all the day
With amorous airs my fancy entertain,
Invoke the Muses and improve my vein!

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бо

No passion there in my free breast should move,

None but the sweet and best of passions, love.
There while I sing, if gentle Love be by,

That tunes my lute and winds the strings so high,
With the sweet sound of Sacharissa's name
I'll make the listening savages grow tame.

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1645.

ON A GIRDLE

That which her slender waist confined
Shall now my joyful temples bind:
No monarch but would give his crown,
His arms might do what this has done.

It was my heaven's extremest sphere,
The pale which held that lovely deer:
My joy, my grief, my hope, my love,
Did all within this circle move.

A narrow compass, and yet there
Dwelt all that's good and all that's fair:
Give me but what this ribband bound,
Take all the rest the sun goes round!

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ΙΟ

A PANEGYRIC TO MY LORD PROTECTOR

Lords of the world's great waste, the ocean, we
Whole forests send to reign upon the sea,
And every coast may trouble or relieve;
But none can visit us without your leave.

Angels and we have this prerogative:
That none can at our happy seat arrive;
While we descend at pleasure, to invade
The bad with vengeance, and the good to aid.

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