S Y L V A 279 



As ordering your woods and shady bow'rs ; 

 Despise not humbler plants, for they no less 

 Than trees, your gardens beauty do increase. 

 With what content we look on myrtle groves ! 

 On verdant laurels ! there's no man but loves 

 To find his limon, with acanthus, thrive. 

 To see the lovely philyrea live ; 

 With oleander. Ah ! to what delights 

 Shorn cypress, and sweet jessamine invites. 



If any plain be near your garden found, 



With cypress, or with horn-beam, hedge it round. 



Which in a thousand mazes will conspire, 



And to recesses unperceiv'd retire. 



Its branches, like a wall, the paths divide ; 



Affording a fresh scene on every side. 



'Tis true, that it was honour'd heretofore ; 



But order quickly made it valued more, 



By its shorn leaves, and those delights which rose 



From the distinguished forms in which it grows, 



To some cool arbor, by the ways deceit, 



Allur'd, we haste, or some oblique retreat : 



Where underneath its umbrage we may meet 



With sure defence against the raging heat. 



Though cypresses contiguous well appear ; 

 They better shew if planted not so near. 

 And since to any shape, with ease, they yield, 

 What bound's more proper to divide a field ? 

 Repine not, cyparissus, then in vain ; 

 For by your change you glory did obtain. 



Sylvanus and this boy with equal fire 



Did heretofore a lovely hart admire ; 



While in the cooler pastures once it fed, 



An arrow shot at random, struck it dead. 



But when the youth the dying beast had found, 



And knew himself the author of the wound, 



With never-ceasing sorrow he laments, 



And on his breast his grief and anger vents. 



Sylvanus mov'd with the poor creature's fate, 



Converts his former love to present hate. 



And no more pity in his angry words, 



