Athirst ye praise the limpid stream, ’tis true: But though, the pebbled shores among, It mimic no unpleasing song, The limpid fountain murmurs not for you. Unpleas’d ye see the thickets bloom, Unpleas’d the spring her flowery robe resume; Unmov’d the mountain’s airy pile, The dappled mead without a smile. But to the true lover of Nature, Lo! not an hedge-row hawthorn blows, Or humble harebell paints the plain, Or valley winds, or fountain flows, Or purple heath is ting’d in vain: For such the rivers dash the foaming tides, The mountain swells, the dale subsides; Ev’n thriftless furze detains their wandering sight, And the rough, barren rock grows pregnant with delight.[356] Shenstone also defends the doctrine that beauty is its own excuse for being. Let yon admir’d carnation own, Not all was meant for raiment, or for food, Not all for needful use alone.[357] Though Shenstone’s work is often undeniably tame and diffuse, and though his interests were bounded by his farm, he is of significance because of his thorough enjoyment of quiet country places, his indignant rejection of the utilitarian view of Nature, and his courageous plea for truth to English scenes. Greene’s chief poem, “The Spleen,” was published in 1737, after his death. The subject is not one that would lead to much use of Nature, but there is at least one picture that cannot be passed over.[358] In his sketch of the ideal life he describes his ideal home. Its surroundings are most charming and natural, and the whole scene, in its unity and reality of effect, contrasts well with such fanciful combinations as the garden in Tickell’s “To a Lady before Marriage.” One line in this description, Brown fields their fallow sabbaths keep,[359] is remarkable in that, in so few words, it not only presents a complete picture, but also awakens the feeling that would be excited by the scene itself. Hamilton’s chief use of Nature is in gentle little allegories of life. “The Rhone and the Arar,” though a description of two rivers, is obviously didactic in all its details. Spring, summer, and winter in Ode III are but “moral shows,” spread out for man’s instruction. Though Hamilton’s scenes are usually of the soft, delicious, vaguely pleasing sort, and his diction largely classical, yet now and then in his rather monotonous spring poetry we find a fresh line or phrase, as when he comments on spring’s gift of beauty to “each nameless field.” He finds joy in the prickly briar rose, the bright-colored weed, the lion’s yellow tooth, in a thousand flowers never sowed by art.[360] He is filled with gratitude as he looks upon the smiling face of Nature and the radiant glories of the sky, or listens to the music of the opening year.[361] In “Contemplation” he exclaims,