| |
| WELL then; I now do plainly see, | |
| This busy world and I shall ne’er agree; | |
| The very honey of all earthly joy | |
| Does of all meats the soonest cloy | |
| And they, methinks, deserve my pity, | 5 |
| Who for it can endure the stings, | |
| The crowd, and buz, and murmurings | |
| Of this great hive, the city. | |
| |
| Ah, yet, ere I descend to the grave | |
| May I a small house and large garden have! | 10 |
| And a few friends, and many books, both true, | |
| Both wise, and both delightful too! | |
| And since Love ne’er will from me flee, | |
| A mistress moderately fair, | |
| And good as guardian angels are, | 15 |
| Only belov’d, and loving me! | |
| |
| Oh, fountains, when in you shall I | |
| Myself, eased of unpeaceful thoughts, espy? | |
| Oh fields! Oh woods! when, when shall I be made | |
| The happy tenant of your shade? | 20 |
| Here’s the spring-head of Pleasure’s flood; | |
| Where all the riches lie, that she | |
| Has coin’d and stamp’d for good. | |
| |
| Pride and ambition here; | |
| Only in far-fetch’d metaphors appear; | 25 |
| Here nought but winds can hurtful murmurs scatter, | |
| And nought but Echo flatter. | |
| The Gods, when they descended, hither | |
| From heaven did always choose their way; | |
| And therefore we may bodly say, | 30 |
| That ’tis the way too thither. | |
| |
| How happy here should I, | |
| And one dear She live, and embracing die! | |
| She who is all the world, and can exclude | |
| In deserts solitude. | 35 |
| I should have then this only fear, | |
| Lest men, when they my pleasures see, | |
| Should hither throng to live like me; | |
| And so make a city here. | |
| |
