By Charles Cotton

AREWELL, thou busy world, and may

We never meet again;

Here I can eat and sleep and

pray,

And do more good in one short day

Than he who his whole age outwears

Upon the most conspicuous theatres,
Where naught but vanity and vice appears.

Good God! how sweet are all things here!
How beautiful the fields appear!

How cleanly do we feed and lie!
Lord! what good hours do we keep !
How quietly we sleep!

What peace, what unanimity!
How innocent from the lewd fashion
Is all our business, all our recreation!

O, how happy here's our leisure!
O, how innocent our pleasure!
O ye valleys! O ye mountains!
O ye groves, and crystal fountains!
How I love, at liberty,

By turns to come and visit ye!

I

Dear solitude, the soul's best friend,
That man acquainted with himself dost make,
And all his Maker's wonders to intend,

With thee I here converse at will,

And would be glad to do so still,

For it is thou alone that keep'st the soul awake.

How calm and quiet a delight

Is it, alone,

To read and meditate and write,

By none offended, and offending none !

To walk, ride, sit, or sleep at one's own ease;

And, pleasing a man's self, none other to dis

please.

O my beloved nymph, fair Dove,

Princess of rivers, how I love

Upon thy flowery banks to lie,

And view thy silver stream,
When gilded by a Summer's beam !
And in it all thy wanton fry
Playing at liberty,

And, with my angle, upon them
The all of treachery

I ever learned industriously to try!

Such streams Rome's yellow Tiber cannot show,
The Iberian Tagus, or Ligurian Po;

The Maese, the Danube, and the Rhine,
Are puddle-water, all, compared with thine;
And Loire's pure streams yet too polluted are
With thine, much purer, to compare ;

The rapid Garonne and the winding Seine

Are both too mean,

Beloved Dove, with thee

To vie priority;

Nay, Tame and Isis, when conjoined, submit,
And lay their trophies at thy silver feet.

O my beloved rocks, that rise

To awe the earth and brave the skies!
From some aspiring mountain's crown
How dearly do I love,

Giddy with pleasure to look down;

And from the vales to view the noble heights

above;

O my beloved caves! from dog-star's heat,
And all anxieties, my safe retreat;

What safety, privacy, what true delight,
In the artificial light

Your gloomy entrails make,

Have I taken, do I take!

How oft, when grief has made me fly,
To hide me from society

E'en of my dearest friends, have I,

In your recesses' friendly shade,

All my sorrows open laid,

And my most secret woes intrusted to your privacy!

Lord! would men let me alone,

What an over-happy one

Should I think myself to be—

Might I in this desert place,

(Which most men in discourse disgrace) Live but undisturbed and free!

Here in this despised recess,

Would I, maugre Winter's cold,

And the Summer's worst excess,

Try to live out to sixty full years old; And, all the while,

Without an envious eye

On any thriving under Fortune's smile,
Contented live, and then contented die.

FOR ONE RETIRED INTO THE COUNTRY

By Charles Wesley

ENCE, lying world, with all thy

care,

With all thy shows of good and fair,

Of beautiful or great!

Stand with thy slighted charms
aloof,

Nor dare invade my peaceful roof,
Or trouble my retreat.

Far from thy mad fantastic ways
I here have found a resting-place
Of poor wayfaring men:
Calm as the hermit in his grot
I here enjoy my happy lot,

And solid pleasures gain.

Along the hill or dewy mead
In sweet forgetfulness I tread,

Or wander through the grove;
As Adam in his native seat,
In all his works my God I meet,
The object of my love.

I see his beauty in the flower:
To shade my walks and deck my
His love and wisdom join;
Him in the feathered choir I hear,
And own, while all my soul is ear,

The music is divine.

In yon unbounded plain I see
A sketch of his immensity

bower

Who spans these ample skies;

Whose presence makes the happy place, And opens in the wilderness

A blooming paradise.

Oh, would he now himself impart,

And fix the Eden in my heart,

The sense of sin forgiven:

How should I then throw off my load,

And walk delightfully with God,

And follow Christ to heaven!