IN PRAISE OF GARDENS 



Meets his approach, and to the heart inspires 

 Vernal delight and joy, able to drive 

 All sadness but despair. Now gentle gales 

 Fanning their odoriferous wings, dispense 

 Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole 

 Prose balmy spoils. . . . 



Beneath him, with new wonder, now he views, 



To all delight of human sense exposed, 



In narrow room Nature's whole wealth; yea, 



more ! 



A Heaven on Earth: for blissful Paradise 

 Of God the garden was, by him in the east 

 Of Eden planted. Eden stretched her line 

 From Auran eastward to the royal towers 

 Of great Seleucia, built by Grecian Kings, 

 Or where the sons of Eden long before 

 Dwelt in Telasser. In this pleasant soil 

 His far more pleasant garden God ordained. 

 Out of the fertile ground he caused to grow 

 All trees of noblest kind for sight, smell, taste; 

 And all amid them stood the Tree of Life, 

 High, eminent, blooming ambrosial fruit 

 Of vegetable gold; and next to life, 

 Our death, the Tree of Knowledge, grew fast by 

 Knowledge of good, bought dear by knowing ill. 



[188] 



