So, gracious God (if it may lawful be,
Among those foolish gods to mention Thee),
So let me act, on such a private stage,
The last dull scenes of my declining age;
After long toils and voyages in vain,
This quiet port let my tossed vessel gain;
Of heavenly rest this earnest to me lend,
Let my life sleep, and learn to love her end.
THE GARDEN
To J. Evelyn, Esquire.
I never had any other desire so strong, and so like to covetousness,
as that one which I have had always, that I might be master at last
of a small house and large garden, with very moderate conveniences
joined to them, and there dedicate the remainder of my life only to
the culture of them and the study of nature.
And there (with no design beyond my wall) whole and entire to lie,
In no unactive ease, and no unglorious poverty.
Or, as Virgil has said, shorter and better for me, that I might
there studiis florere ignobilis otii, though I could wish that he
had rather said Nobilis otii when he spoke of his own. But several
accidents of my ill fortune have disappointed me hitherto, and do
still, of that felicity; for though I have made the first and
hardest step to it, by abandoning all ambitions and hopes in this
world, and by retiring from the noise of all business and almost
company, yet I stick still in the inn of a hired house and garden,
among weeds and rubbish, and without that pleasantest work of human
industry--the improvement of something which we call (not very
properly, but yet we call) our own.
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