The poet then goes on to glorify the results of this union and to describe happy days spent at Nunappleton by the descendants of Isabella Thwaites.

    “At the demolishing, this seat
    To Fairfax fell, as by escheat;
    And what both nuns and founders willed,
    ’Tis likely better thus fulfilled. 
    For if the virgin proved not theirs,
    The cloister yet remained hers;
    Though many a nun there made her vow,
    ’Twas no religious house till now. 
    From that blest bed the hero came
    Whom France and Poland yet does fame;
    Who, when retired here to peace,
    His warlike studies could not cease;
    But laid these gardens out, in sport,
    In the just figure of a fort,
    And with five bastions it did fence,
    As aiming one for every sense. 
    When in the east the morning ray
    Hangs out the colours of the day,
    The bee through these known alleys hums,
    Beating the dian with its drums. 
    Then flowers their drowsy eyelids raise,
    Their silken ensigns each displays,
    And dries its pan, yet dank with dew,
    And fills its flask with odours new. 
    These as their Governor goes by
    In fragrant volleys they let fly,
    And to salute their Governess
    Again as great a charge they press: 
    None for the virgin nymph; for she
    Seems with the flowers a flower to be. 
    And think so still! though not compare
    With breath so sweet, or cheek so fair! 
    Well shot, ye firemen!  Oh, how sweet
    And round your equal fires do meet,
    Whose shrill report no ear can tell,
    But echoes to the eye and smell! 
    See how the flowers, as at parade,
    Under their colours stand displayed;
    Each regiment in order grows,
    That of the tulip, pink and rose. 
    But when the vigilant patrol
    Of stars walk round about the pole,
    Their leaves, which to the stalks are curled,
    Seem to their staves the ensigns furled. 
    Then in some flower’s beloved hut,
    Each bee, as sentinel, is shut,
    And sleeps so too, but, if once stirred,
    She runs you through, nor asks the word.

    Oh, thou, that dear and happy isle,
    The garden of the world erewhile,
    Thou Paradise of the four seas,
    Which heaven planted us to please,
    But, to exclude the world, did guard
    With watery, if not flaming sword,—­
    What luckless apple did we taste,
    To make us mortal, and thee waste? 
    Unhappy! shall we never more
    That sweet militia restore,
    When gardens only had their towers
    And all the garrisons were flowers,
    When roses only arms might bear,
    And men did rosy garlands wear? 
    Tulips, in several colours barred,
    Were then the Switzers of our guard;
    The gardener had the soldier’s place,