Classic Poem

He that from dust of worldly tumults flies,
May boldly open his undazled eyes,
To reade wise Natures booke, and with delight
Surveyes the Plants by day, and starres by night.
We need not travel, seeking wayes to blisse:
He that desires contentment, cannot misse:
No garden walles this precious flowre imbrace:
It common growes in ev'ry desart place.
Large scope of pleasure drownes us like a flood,
To rest in little, is our greatest good.
Learne ye that climb the top of Fortunes wheele,
That dang'rous state which ye disdaine to feele:
Your highnesse puts your happinesse to flight,
Your inward comforts fade with outward light,
Unlesse it be a blessing not to know
This certaine truth, lest ye should pine for woe,
To see inferiours so divinely blest
With freedome, and your selves with fetters prest,
Ye sit like pris'ners barr'd with doores and chaines,
And yet no care perpetuall care restraines.
Ye strive to mixe your sad conceits with joyes,
By curious pictures, and by glitt'ring toyes,
While others are not hind'red from their ends,
Delighting to converse with bookes or friends,
And living thus retir'd, obtaine the pow'r
To reigne as Kings, of every sliding houre:
They walke by Cynthia's light, and lift their eyes
To view the ord'red armies in the skies.
The heav'ns they measure with imagin'd lines,
And when the Northerne Hemisphere declines,
New constellations in the South they find,
Whose rising may refresh the studious mind.
In these delights, though freedome shew more high:
Few can to things above their thoughts apply.
But who is he that cannot cast his looke
On earth, and reade the beauty of that booke?
A bed of smiling flow'rs, a trickling Spring,
A swelling River, more contentment bring,
Than can be shadow'd by the best of Art:
Thus still the poore man hath the better part.