And his more gentle forts did trace;
    The nursery of all things green
    Was then the only magazine;
    The winter quarters were the stoves,
    Where he the tender plants removes. 
    But war all this doth overgrow: 
    We ordnance plant, and powder sow.

    The arching boughs unite between
    The columns of the temple green,
    And underneath the winged quires
    Echo about their tuned fires. 
    The nightingale does here make choice
    To sing the trials of her voice;
    Low shrubs she sits in, and adorns
    With music high the squatted thorns;
    But highest oaks stoop down to hear,
    And listening elders prick the ear;
    The thorn, lest it should hurt her, draws
    Within the skin its shrunken claws. 
    But I have for my music found
    A sadder, yet more pleasing sound;
    The stock-doves, whose fair necks are graced
    With nuptial rings, their ensigns chaste,
    Yet always, for some cause unknown,
    Sad pair, unto the elms they moan. 
    O why should such a couple mourn,
    That in so equal flames do burn! 
    Then as I careless on the bed
    Of gelid strawberries do tread,
    And through the hazels thick espy
    The hatching throstle’s shining eye,
    The heron, from the ash’s top,
    The eldest of its young lets drop,
    As if it stork-like did pretend
    That tribute to its lord to send.

    Thus I, easy philosopher,
    Among the birds and trees confer;
    And little now to make me, wants,
    Or of the fowls, or of the plants;
    Give me but wings as they, and I
    Straight floating on the air shall fly;
    Or turn me but, and you shall see
    I was but an inverted tree. 
    Already I begin to call
    In their most learn’d original,
    And where I language want, my signs
    The bird upon the bough divines,
    And more attentive there doth sit
    Than if she were with lime-twigs knit,
    No leaf does tremble in the wind,
    Which I returning cannot find. 
    One of these scattered Sibyls’ leaves
    Strange prophecies my fancy weaves,
    And in one history consumes,
    Like Mexique paintings, all the plumes;
    What Rome, Greece, Palestine e’er said,
    I in this light mosaic read. 
    Thrice happy he, who, not mistook,
    Hath read in Nature’s mystic book! 
    And see how chance’s better wit
    Could with a mask my studies hit! 
    The oak-leaves me embroider all,
    Between which caterpillars crawl;
    And ivy, with familiar trails,
    Me licks and clasps, and curls and hales. 
    Under this Attic cope I move,
    Like some great prelate of the grove;
    Then, languishing with ease, I toss
    On pallets swoln of velvet moss,
    While the wind, cooling through the boughs,
    Flatters with air my panting