Although the letter said
On thistles that men look not grapes to gather,°
I read the story rather
How soldiers platting thorns around CHRIST'S Head
Grapes grew and drops of wine were shed.

Though when the sower sowed°
The wingèd fowls took part, part fell in thorn
And never turned to corn,
Part found no root upon the flinty road,—
CHRIST at all hazards fruit hath shewed.

From wastes of rock He brings°
Food for five thousand: on the thorns He shed
Grains from His drooping Head;

Such pleasure as the teeming earth
Doth take in easy nature's birth,
When she puts forth the life of everything:
And in a dew of sweetest rain,
She lies delivered without pain,
Of the prime beauty of the year, the spring.
The rivers in their shores do run;
The clouds rack clear before the sun,
The rudest winds obey the calmest air:
Rare plants from every bank to rise,
And every plant the sense surprise,
Because the order of the whole is fair!
The very verdure of her nest,
Wherein she sits so richly dressed,

Son, and my friend, I had not called you so
To me; or been the same to you; if show,
Profit, or chance had made us: but I know
What, by that name, we each to other owe,
Freedom, and truth; with love from those begot:
Wise crafts, on which the flatterer ventures not.
His is more safe commodity, or none:
Nor dares he come in the comparison.
But as the wretched painter, who so ill
Painted a dog, that now his subtler skill
Was, t'have a boy stand with a club, and fright
All live dogs from the lane, and his shop's sight,

In the great City rear'd, my fancy rude
By natural Forms unnurs'd & unsubdued
An Alien from the Rivers & the Fields
And all the Charms, that Hill or Woodland yields,
It was the pride & passion of my Youth
T' impersonate & color moral Truth[:]
Rare Allegories in those Days I spun,
That oft had mystic senses oft'ner none.
Of all Resemblances however faint,
So dear a Lover was I, that with quaint
Figures fantastically grouped I made
Of commonest Thoughts a moving Masquerade.
'Twas then I fram'd this obscure uncouth Rhyme,

Not he that flies the court for want of clothes,
At hunting rails, having no gift in oaths,
Cries out 'gainst cocking, since he cannot bet,
Shuns prease, for two main causes, pox, and debt,
With me can merit more, than that good man,
Whose dice not doing well, to a pulpit ran.
No, Shelton, give me thee, canst want all these,
But dost it out of judgement, not disease;
Dar'st breathe in any air; and with safe skill,
Till thou canst find the best, choose the least ill.
That to the vulgar canst thyself apply,
Treading a better path, not contrary;

So Phoebus makes me worthy of his bays,
As but to speak thee, Overbury, is praise:
So, where thou liv'st, thou mak'st life understood!
Where, what makes others great, doth keep thee good!
I think, the Fate of court thy coming craved,
That the wit there, and manners might be saved:
For since, what ignorance, what pride is fled!
And letters, and humanity in the stead!
Repent thee not of thy fair precedent,
Could make such men, and such a place repent:
Nor may any fear, to lose of their degree,
Who in such ambition can but follow thee.

Earth! thou mother of numberless children, the nurse and the mother,
Hail! O Goddess, thrice hail! Blest be thou! and, blessing, I hymn thee!
Forth, ye sweet sounds! from my harp, and my voice shall float on your surges--
Soar thou aloft, O my soul! and bear up my song on thy pinions.

Travelling the vale with mine eyes--green meadows and lake with green island,
Dark in its basin of rock, and the bare stream flowing in brightness,
Thrilled with thy beauty and love in the wooded slope of the mountain,

Bank feels no lameness of his knotty gout,
His monies travel for him, in and out:
And though the soundest legs go every day,
He toils to be at hell, as soon as they.

If all you boast of your great art be true;
Sure, willing poverty lives most in you.

Hear, my belovéd, an old Milesian story!--
High, and embosom'd in congregated laurels,
Glimmer'd a temple upon a breezy headland;
In the dim distance amid the skiey billows
Rose a fair island; the god of flocks had blest it.
From the far shores of the bleat-resounding island
Oft by the moonlight a little boat came floating,
Came to the sea-cave beneath the breezy headland,
Where amid myrtles a pathway stole in mazes
Up to the groves of the high embosom'd temple.
There in a thicket of dedicated roses,
Oft did a priestess, as lovely as a vision,