How vainly men themselves amaze To win the Palm, the Oke, or Bayes; And their uncessant Labours see Crown’d from some single Herb or Tree, Whose short and narrow verged Shade Does prudently their Toyles upbraid; While all Flow’rs and all Trees do close To weave the Garlands of repose.Fair quiet, have I found thee here, And Innocence thy Sister dear! Mistaken long, I sought you then In busie Companies of Men. Your sacred Plants, if here below, Only among the Plants will grow. Society is all but rude, To this delicious Solitude:No white nor red was ever seen So am’rous as this lovely green. Fond Lovers, cruel as their Flame, Cut in these Trees their Mistress name. Little, Alas, they know or heed, How far these Beauties Hers exceed! Fair trees! where s’eer your barkes I wound, No Name shall but your own be found.When we have run our Passion’ 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 wond’rous Life in this I lead! Ripe Apples drop about my head; The Luscious Clusters of the Vine Upon my Mouth do crush their Wine; The Necrtaren, and curious Peach, Into my hands themselves do reach; Stumbling on Melons, as I pass, Insnared with Flow’rs, I fall on Grass.Mean while the Mind, from pleasure less, Withdraws into its happiness: The Mind, that Ocean where each kind Does streight its own resemblance find; Yet it creates, transcending these, Far other Worlds, and other Seas; Annihilating all that’s made To a green Thought in a green Shade.Here at the Fountains sliding foot, Or at some Fruit-trees mossy root, Casting the Bodies 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 prepar’d 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 Gardner drew Of flow’rs and herbs this Dial new; Where from above the milder Sun Does through a fragrant Zodiack run; And, as it works, th’ industrious Bee Computes its time as well as we. How could such sweet and wholsome Hours Be reckon’d but with herbs and flow’rs!
Luxurious man, to bring his vice in use, Did after him the world seduce, And from the fields the flowers and plants allure, Where nature was most plain and pure. He first enclosed within the gardens square A dead and standing pool of air, And a more luscious earth for them did knead, Which stupified them while it fed. The pink grew then as double as his mind; The nutriment did change the kind. With strange perfumes he did the roses taint, And flowers themselves were taught to paint. The tulip, white, did for complexion seek, And learned to interline its cheek: Its onion root they then so high did hold, That one was for a meadow sold. Another world was searched, through oceans new, To find the Marvel of Peru. And yet these rarities might be allowed To man, that sovereign thing and proud, Had he not dealt between the bark and tree, Forbidden mixtures there to see. No plant now knew the stock from which it came; He grafts upon the wild the tame: That th’ uncertain and adulterate fruit Might put the palate in dispute. His green seraglio has its eunuchs too, Lest any tyrant him outdo. And in the cherry he does nature vex, To procreate without a sex. ’Tis all enforced, the fountain and the grot, While the sweet fields do lie forgot: Where willing nature does to all dispense A wild and fragrant innocence: And fauns and fairies do the meadows till, More by their presence than their skill. Their statues, polished by some ancient hand, May to adorn the gardens stand: But howsoe’er the figures do excel, The gods themselves with us do dwell.
See how the flowers, as at parade, Under their colours stand display’d: Each regiment in order grows, That of the tulip, pink, and rose. But when the vigilant patrol Of stars walks round about the pole, Their leaves, that to the stalks are curl’d, Seem to their staves the ensigns furl’d. Then in some flower’s belovèd hut Each bee, as sentinel, is shut, And sleeps so too; but if once stirr’d, She runs you through, nor asks the word. O thou, that dear and happy Isle, The garden of the world erewhile, Thou Paradise of the four seas Which Heaven planted us to please, But, to exclude the world, did guard With wat’ry if not flaming sword; What luckless apple did we taste To make us mortal and thee waste! Unhappy! shall we never more That sweet militia restore, When gardens only had their towers, And all the garrisons were flowers; When roses only arms might bear, And men did rosy garlands wear?
Andrew Marvell, "A Garden (Written after the Civil Wars)"
