IN PRAISE OF GARDENS 



Of Eden's blissful wilderness, 

 Did only softly stealing hours 

 There close the peaceful lives of flowers? 



Say, when the moving creatures saw 

 All kinds commingled without fear, 

 Prevailed a like indulgent law 

 For the still growths that prosper here? 

 Did wanton faun and kid forbear 

 The half-blown rose, the lily spare? 



Or peeped they often from their beds, 

 And prematurely disappeared, 

 Devoured like pleasure ere it spreads 

 A bosom to the sun endeared? 

 If such their harsh untimely doom, 

 It falls not here on bud or bloom. 



All summer long the happy Eve 

 Of this fair Spot her flowers may bind, 

 Nor e'er, with ruffled fancy, grieve, 

 From the next glance she casts, to find 

 That love for little things by Fate 

 Is rendered vain as love for great. 



[168] 



