Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. II. The Seventeenth Century: Ben Jonson to Dryden
James Shirley (15961666)The Garden (from Poems)
T
Though here you show how art of men
Can purchase nature at such price
Would stock old Paradise again.
I envy not your spring nor pride;
Nay boast the summer all your own,
My thoughts with less are satisfied.
Where might I with the sun agree,
Though every day he walk the round
My garden he should seldom see.
To court my eye, shall lose their name,
Though now they listen, as if they
Expected I should praise their flame.
Within the violet’s drooping head,
On which a melancholy tear
The discontented morn hath shed.
And virgin lilies on their stem,
Till sighs from lovers glide and creep
Into their leaves to open them.
Of bays and yew my summer-room,
Which may, so oft as I repose,
Present my arbour and my tomb.
Or if a chance do bring one hither,
I ’ll be secure, for round about
I ’ll moat it with my eyes’ foul weather.
To charm me with their shames of art,
Unless some wandering nightingale
Come here to sing and break her heart;
An epitaph, in some funeral stone,
So sad and true, it may invite
Myself to die, and prove mine own.