For God, the universal architect, ’T had been as easy to erect A Louvre, or Escurial, or a tower That might with heaven communication hold, As Babel vainly thought to do of old. He wanted not the skill or power, In the world’s fabric those were shown, And the materials were all his own. But well he knew what place would best agree With innocence and with felicity; And we elsewhere still seek for them in vain. If any part of either yet remain, If any part of either we expect, This may our judgment in the search direct; God the first garden made, and the first city, Cain. IV. Oh, blessèd shades! Oh, gentle, cool retreat From all the immoderate heat, In which the frantic world does burn and sweat! This does the lion-star, Ambition’s rage; This Avarice, the dog-star’s thirst assuage; Everywhere else their fatal power we see, They make and rule man’s wretched destiny; They neither set nor disappear, But tyrannise o’er all the year; Whilst we ne’er feel their flame or influence here. The birds that dance from bough to bough, And sing above in every tree, Are not from fears and cares more free, Than we who lie, or sit, or walk below, And should by right be singers too. What prince’s choir of music can excel That which within this shade does dwell, To which we nothing pay or give— They, like all other poets, live Without reward or thanks for their obliging pains. ’Tis well if they become not prey. The whistling winds add their less artful strains, And a grave base the murmuring fountains play. Nature does all this harmony bestow; But to our plants, art’s music too, The pipe, theorbo, and guitar we owe; The lute itself, which once was green and mute, When Orpheus struck the inspirèd lute, The trees danced round, and understood By sympathy the voice of wood. V. These are the spells that to kind sleep invite, And nothing does within resistance make; Which yet we moderately take; Who would not choose to be awake, While he’s encompassed round with such delight; To the ear, the nose, the touch, the taste and sight? When Venus would her dear Ascanius keep A prisoner in the downy bands of sleep, She odorous herbs and flowers beneath him spread, As the most soft and sweetest bed; Not her own lap would more have charmed his head. Who that has reason and his smell Would not among roses and jasmine dwell, Rather than all his spirits choke, With exhalations of dirt and smoke, And all the uncleanness which does drown In pestilential clouds a populous town? The earth itself breathes better perfumes here, Than all the female men or women there, Not without cause, about them bear. VI.