New to my taste, his Paradise surpass'd As twice seven years, his beauties had then first I studied, prized, and wish'd that I had known, Though stretch'd at ease in Chertsey's silent bowers 'Tis born with all. The love of Nature's works And though the Almighty Maker has throughout 710 715 720 725 730 735 And touches of his hand with so much art Diversified, that two were never found Twins at all points,-yet this obtains in all, That all discern a beauty in his works And all can taste them. Minds that have been form'd 741 But none without some relish, none unmoved. It is a flame that dies not even there Where nothing feeds it. Neither business, crowds, 745 28 I seem through consecrated walks to rove, I hear soft music die along the grove; Here his first lays majestic Denham sung, There the last numbers flowed from Cowley's tongue Pope. Windsor Forest. Whatever else they smother of true worth A garden in which nothing thrives, has charms He cultivates. These serve him with a hint That nature lives, that sight-refreshing green Though sickly samples of the exuberant whole. What are the casements lined with creeping herbs, Of orange, myrtle, or the fragrant weed 750 755 760 The Frenchman's darling29? are they not all proofs 765 That man immured in cities, still retains His inborn inextinguishable thirst Of rural scenes, compensating his loss By supplemental shifts, the best he may? The most unfurnished with the means of life, And they that never pass their brick-wall bounds 770 To range the fields and treat their lungs with air, Hail, therefore, patroness of health and ease s. c.-6. 29 Mignonette. H 775 780 785 I shall not add myself to such a chace, 790 He gives a tongue to enlarge upon, an heart To feel, and courage to redress her wrongs; 795 To monarchs dignity, to judges sense, To artists ingenuity and skill; To me an unambitious mind, content In the low vale of life, that early felt A wish for ease and leisure, and ere long 800 Found here that leisure and that ease I wish'd. |