Age no impediment to those can give,
Who wisely by the rules of Nature live. 
Earth (though our mother) cheerfully obeys
All the commands her race upon her lays. 
For whatsoever from our hand she takes,
Greater or less, a vast return she makes. 
Nor am I only pleased with that resource,
But with her ways, her method, and her force. 540
The seed her bosom (by the plough made fit)
Receives, where kindly she embraces it,
Which with her genuine warmth diffused and spread,
Sends forth betimes a green and tender head,
Then gives it motion, life, and nourishment,
Which from the root through nerves and veins are sent;
Straight in a hollow sheath upright it grows,
And, form receiving, doth itself disclose: 
Drawn up in ranks and files, the bearded spikes
Guard it from birds as with a stand of pikes. 550
When of the vine I speak, I seem inspired,
And with delight, as with her juice, am fired;
At Nature’s godlike power I stand amazed,
Which such vast bodies hath from atoms raised. 
The kernel of a grape, the fig’s small grain,
Can clothe a mountain and o’ershade a plain: 
But thou, (dear Vine!) forbid’st me to be long;
Although thy trunk be neither large nor strong,
Nor can thy head (not help’d) itself sublime,
Yet, like a serpent, a tall tree can climb; 560
Whate’er thy many fingers can entwine,
Proves thy support, and all its strength is thine. 
Though Nature gave not legs, it gave the hands,
By which thy prop the proudest cedar stands: 
As thou hast hands, so hath thy offspring wings,
And to the highest part of mortals springs. 
But lest thou should’st consume thy wealth in vain,
And starve thyself to feed a num’rous train,
Or like the bee (sweet as thy blood) design’d
To be destroy’d to propagate his kind, 570
Lest thy redundant and superfluous juice,
Should fading leaves instead of fruits produce,
The pruner’s hand, with letting blood, must quench
Thy heat, and thy exub’rant parts retrench: 
Then from the joints of thy prolific stem
A swelling knot is raised (call’d a gem),
Whence, in short space, itself the cluster shows, 577
And from earth’s moisture mixed with sunbeams grows. 
I’ th’spring, like youth, it yields an acid taste,
But summer doth, like age, the sourness waste;
Then clothed with leaves, from heat and cold secure,
Like virgins, sweet and beauteous, when mature. 
On fruits, flowers, herbs, and plants, I long could dwell,
At once to please my eye, my taste, my smell;
My walks of trees, all planted by my hand,
Like children of my own begetting stand. 
To tell the sev’ral natures of each earth,
What fruits from each most properly take birth: 
And with what arts to enrich every mould,
The dry to moisten, and to warm the cold.