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, Good God! how sweet are all things here! How cleanly do we feed and lie! What peace, what unanimity! O, how happy here's our leisure! By turns to come and visit ye! I Dear solitude, the soul's best friend, 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, And, with my angle, upon them I ever learned industriously to try! Such streams Rome's yellow Tiber cannot show, The Maese, the Danube, and the Rhine, 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, O my beloved rocks, that rise To awe the earth and brave the skies! 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, What safety, privacy, what true delight, Your gloomy entrails make, Have I taken, do I take! How oft, when grief has made me fly, 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, 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 Nor dare invade my peaceful roof, Far from thy mad fantastic ways And solid pleasures gain. Along the hill or dewy mead Or wander through the grove; I see his beauty in the flower: The music is divine. In yon unbounded plain I see 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! |