Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. II. The Seventeenth Century: Ben Jonson to Dryden

James Shirley (1596–1666)

The Garden (from Poems)

THIS garden does not take my eyes,

Though here you show how art of men

Can purchase nature at such price

Would stock old Paradise again.

These glories while you dote upon,

I envy not your spring nor pride;

Nay boast the summer all your own,

My thoughts with less are satisfied.

Give me a little plot of ground,

Where might I with the sun agree,

Though every day he walk the round

My garden he should seldom see.

Those tulips that such wealth display

To court my eye, shall lose their name,

Though now they listen, as if they

Expected I should praise their flame.

But I would see myself appear

Within the violet’s drooping head,

On which a melancholy tear

The discontented morn hath shed.

Within their buds let roses sleep

And virgin lilies on their stem,

Till sighs from lovers glide and creep

Into their leaves to open them.

I’ th’ centre of my ground compose

Of bays and yew my summer-room,

Which may, so oft as I repose,

Present my arbour and my tomb.

No woman here shall find me out,

Or if a chance do bring one hither,

I ’ll be secure, for round about

I ’ll moat it with my eyes’ foul weather.

No birds shall live within my pale,

To charm me with their shames of art,

Unless some wandering nightingale

Come here to sing and break her heart;

Upon whose death I ’ll try to write

An epitaph, in some funeral stone,

So sad and true, it may invite

Myself to die, and prove mine own.