| |
| LUXURIOUS man, to bring his vice in use, | |
| Did after him the word seduce, | |
| And from the fields the flowers and plants allure, | |
| Where Nature was most plain and pure. | |
| He first inclosed within the gardens square | 5 |
| A dead and standing pool of air, | |
| And a more luscious earth for them did knead, | |
| Which stupefied them while it fed. | |
| The pink grew then as double as his mind; | |
| The nutriment did change the kind. | 10 |
| With strange perfumes he did the roses taint; | |
| And flowers themselves were taught to paint. | |
| The tulip white did for complexion seek, | |
| And learned to interline its cheek; | |
| Its onion root they then so high did hold, | 15 |
| That one was for a meadow sold: | |
| Another world was searched through oceans new. | |
| To find the marvel of Peru; 1 | |
| And yet these rarities might be allowed | |
| To man, that sovereign thing and proud, | 20 |
| Had he not dealt between the bark and tree, | |
| Forbidden mixtures there to see. | |
| No plant now knew the stock from which it came; | |
| He grafts upon the wild the tame, | |
| That the uncertain and adulterate fruit | 25 |
| Might put the palate in dispute. | |
| His green seraglio has its eunuchs too, | |
| Lest any tyrant him outdo; | |
| And in the cherry he does Nature vex, | |
| To procreate without a sex. | 30 |
| ’Tis all enforced, the fountain and the grot, | |
| While the sweet fields do lie forgot, | |
| Where willing Nature does to all dispense | |
| A wild and fragrant innocence; | |
| And fauns and fairies do the meadows till | 35 |
| More by their presence than their skill. | |
| Their statues polished by some ancient hand, | |
| May to adorn the gardens stand; | |
| But, howsoe’er the figures do excel, | |
| The Gods themselves with us do dwell. | 40 |
