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Fair trees! wheres'e'er your barks I wound
No name shall but your own be found.

When we have run our passion's heat,
Love hither makes his best retreat.
The gods, that mortal beauty chase,
Still in a tree did end their race;
Apollo hunted Daphne so,
Only that she might laurel grow;
And Pan did after Syrinx speed,
Not as a nymph, but for a reed.

What wondrous life is this I lead!
Ripe apples drop about my head;
The luscious clusters of the vine
Upon my mouth do crush their wine;
The nectarine, and curious peach,
Into my hands themselves do reach;
Stumbling on melons, as I pass,
Insnared with flowers, I fall on grass.

Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less,
Withdraws into its happiness;
The mind, that ocean where each kind
Does straight its own resemblance find;
Yet it creates, transcending these,
Far other worlds, and other seas,
Annihilating all that's made

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Here at the fountain's sliding foot,

To a green thought in a green shade.

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Or at some fruit-tree's mossy root,
Casting the body's vest aside,
My soul into the boughs does glide:
There, like a bird, it sits and sings,
Then whets and combs its silver wings,
And, till prepared for longer flight,
Waves in its plumes the various light.

Such was that happy garden-state,
While man there walked without a mate.
After a place so pure and sweet,
What other help could yet be meet!
But 'twas beyond a mortal's share
To wander solitary there:

Two paradises 'twere in one,
To live in paradise alone.

How well the skilful gardener drew
Of flowers, and herbs, this dial2 new;
Where, from above, the milder sun
Does through a fragrant zodiac run,
And, as it works, the industrious bee

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1 rare, exotic 2 a bed of various flowers which, opening at successive hours, indicate the time of day

Computes its time as well as we !

How could such sweet and wholesome hours Be reckoned but with herbs and flowers?

TO HIS COY MISTRESS

Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, Lady, were no crime,
We would sit down and think which way
To walk and pass our long love's day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow;
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,

And the last age should show your heart.
For, Lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.

But at my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.

Thy beauty shall no more be found,

Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound

My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long preserved virginity,

And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust:

The grave's a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.
Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour

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Than languish in his slow-chapt1 power. 40 Let us roll all our strength and all

Our sweetness up into one ball,

And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life:

Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.

1 Time is represented as having jaws (chaps) that move slowly. 2 through

HENRY VAUGHAN (1622-1695)

THE RETREAT

Happy those early days, when I
Shined in my angel-infancy!
Before I understood this place
Appointed for my second race,
Or taught my soul to fancy ought
But a white, celestial thought;
When yet I had not walked above
A mile or two from my first love,

And looking back at that short space -
Could see a glimpse of His bright face;
When on some gilded cloud or flower
My gazing soul would dwell an hour,
And in those weaker glories spy
Some shadows of eternity;
Before I taught my tongue to wound
My conscience with a sinful sound,
Or had the black art to dispense,
A several sin to every sense,
But felt through all this fleshly dress
Bright shoots of everlastingness.

O how I long to travel back,
And tread again that ancient track!
That I might once more reach that plain,
Where first I left my glorious train;
From whence the enlightened spirit sees
That shady city of palm trees.
But ah! my soul with too much stay
Is drunk, and staggers in the way!
Some men a forward motion love,
But I by backward steps would move;
And when this dust falls to the urn,
In that state I came, return.

FROM THE WORLD

I saw Eternity the other night,

Like a great ring of pure and endless light, All calm, as it was bright;

ΙΟ

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THE RESTORATION

JOHN DRYDEN (1631-1700)

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FROM ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL

Of these the false Achitophel1 was first, 150
A name to all succeeding ages curst:
For close designs and crooked counsels fit,
Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit,3
Restless, unfixed in principles and place,
In power unpleased, impatient of disgrace: 155
A fiery soul, which, working out its way,
Fretted the pigmy body to decay

And o'er-informed the tenement of clay.
A daring pilot in extremity,

Pleased with the danger, when the waves went high,

He sought the storms; but, for a calm unfit, Would steer too nigh the sands to boast his

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A numerous host of dreaming saints succeed
Of the true old enthusiastic breed:
'Gainst form and order they their power en-
ploy,

Nothing to build and all things to destroy.
But far more numerous was the herd of such
Who think too little and who talk too much.
These out of mere instinct, they knew not
why,
Adored their fathers' God and property, 536
And by the same blind benefit of Fate
The Devil and the Jebusite 5 did hate:
Born to be saved even in their own despite,
Because they could not help believing right. 540

the Earl of Shaftesbury 2 secret 3 intellect 4 overfilled their enemies, the Catholics

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Such were the tools; but a whole Hydra1 more
Remains of sprouting heads too long to score.
Some of their chiefs were princes of the land;
In the first rank of these did Zimri 2 stand,
A man so various that he seemed to be
Not one, but all mankind's epitome:
Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,
Was everything by starts and nothing long;
But in the course of one revolving moon
Was chymist,3 fiddler, statesman, and buffoon;
Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drink-
ing,

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Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking.

Blest madman, who could every hour employ With something new to wish or to enjoy! Railing and praising were his usual themes,555 And both, to show his judgment, in extremes: So over violent or over civil

That every man with him was God or Devil. In squandering wealth was his peculiar art; 560 Nothing went unrewarded but desert. Beggared by fools whom still he found too late,

He had his jest, and they had his estate.
He laughed himself from Court; then sought.
relief

By forming parties, but could ne'er be chief:
For spite of him, the weight of business fell 565
On Absalom and wise Achitophel;
Thus wicked but in will, of means bereft,
He left not faction, but of that was left.

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1 a fabulous monster with a hundred heads, killed by Hercules the Duke of Buckingham, whom Dryden hated personally alchemist found out For the churches symbolized by the beasts see the Notes. 6 a general term for barbarians

Their earthly mould obnoxious was to fate,
The immortal part assumed immortal state.
Of these a slaughtered army lay in blood,
Extended o'er the Caledonian1 wood,
Their native walk; whose vocal blood arose 15
And cried for pardon on their perjured foes.
Their fate was fruitful, and the sanguine seed,
Endued with souls, increased the sacred breed.
So captive Israel multiplied in chains,

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A numerous exile, and enjoyed her pains.
With grief and gladness mixed, their mother

viewed

Her martyred offspring and their race renewed;

Their corps to perish, but their kind to last, So much the deathless plant the dying fruit surpassed.

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Panting and pensive now she ranged alone, And wandered in the kingdoms once her own. The common hunt, though from their rage restrained

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By sovereign power, her company disdained,
Grinned as they passed, and with a glaring eye
Gave gloomy signs of secret enmity.
'Tis true she bounded by and tripped so light,
They had not time to take a steady sight;
For truth has such a face and such a mien
As to be loved needs only to be seen.

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The bloody Bear, an Independent beast 35 Unlicked to form,2 in groans her hate expressed. Among the timorous kind the quaking Hare Professed neutrality, but would not swear. Next her the buffoon Ape, as atheists use, 39 Mimicked all sects and had his own to choose; Still when the Lion looked, his knees he bent, And paid at church a courtier's compliment. The bristled Baptist Boar, impure as he, But whitened with the foam of sanctity, With fat pollutions filled the sacred place, 45 And mountains levelled in his furious race: So first rebellion founded was in grace. But, since the mighty ravage which he made In German forests had his guilt betrayed, With broken tusks and with a borrowed name, He shunned the vengeance and concealed the shame,

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With greater guile So lurked in sects unseen. False Reynard fed on consecrated spoil; The graceless beast by Athanasius first Was chased from Nice, then by Socinus nursed,

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But if they think at all, 'tis sure no higher 316 Than matter put in motion may aspire; Souls that can scarce ferment their mass of clay,

So drossy, so divisible are they

As would but serve pure bodies for allay,1 320 Such souls as shards 2 produce, such beetle things

As only buzz to heaven with evening wings, Strike in the dark, offending but by chance, Such are the blindfold blows of ignorance. They know not beings, and but hate a name; To them the Hind and Panther are the same.

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And seems to shake the spheres.

CHORUS

With ravished ears

The monarch hears,

Assumes the god,

Affects to nod,

And seems to shake the spheres.

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The praise of Bacchus then the sweet musician

sung,

Of Bacchus ever fair, and ever young.

The jolly god in triumph comes;

Sound the trumpets, beat the drums ;50
Flushed with a purple grace

He shows his honest face:

Now give the hautboys breath; he comes, he

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a celebrated Athenian musician (d. 357 B.C.), said to have improved the cithara by adding one string to it 2 fabled to have been Alexander's father 3 disguised uplifted in shining spirals 5 Olympias, mother of Alexander

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