34 THE DELIGHTS OF GARDENS 



You thus employ'd, I will go root away 

 The noisome weeds, that without profit suck 

 The soil's fertility from wholesome flowers. 



1st Serv. Why should we, in the compass of a 



pale, 



Keep law, and form, and due proportion, 

 Showing, as in a model, our firm estate ? 

 When our sea-walled garden, the whole land, 

 Is full of weeds ; her fairest flowers chok'd up, 

 Her fruit-trees all unprun'd, her hedges ruin'd, 

 Her knots disorder'd, and her wholesome herbs 

 Swarming with caterpillars ? 



Gard. Hold thy peace : 



He that hath suffered this disorder'd spring, 

 Hath now himself met with the fall of leaf : 

 The weeds, that his broad-spreading leaves did 



shelter, 



That seem'd in eating him to hold him up, 

 Are pluck'd up, root and all, by Bolingbroke ; 

 I mean, the Earl of Wiltshire, Bushy, Green. 



1st Serv. What, are they dead? 



Gard. They are ; and Bolingbroke 



Hath seiz'd the wasteful king. Oh ! what pity is it, 

 That he hath not so trimm'd and dress'd his land 

 As we this garden ! We at time of year 

 Do wound the bark, the skin of our fruit-trees ; 

 Lest, being over-proud with sap and blood, 

 With too much riches it confound itself: 

 Had he done so to great and growing men, 

 They might have liv'd to bear, and he to taste 

 Their fruits of duty. All superfluous branches 

 We lop away, that bearing boughs may live ; 



