I know nobody that possesses more private happiness than you do in
your garden, and yet no man who makes his happiness more public by a
free communication of the art and knowledge of it to others. All
that I myself am able yet to do is only to recommend to mankind the
search of that felicity which you instruct them how to find and to
enjoy.
I.
Happy art thou whom God does bless
With the full choice of thine own happiness;
And happier yet, because thou'rt blessed
With prudence how to choose the best.
In books and gardens thou hast placed aright, -
Things which thou well dost understand,
And both dost make with thy laborious hand -
Thy noble, innocent delight,
And in thy virtuous wife, where thou again dost meet
Both pleasures more refined and sweet:
The fairest garden in her looks,
And in her mind the wisest books.
Oh! who would change these soft, yet solid joys,
For empty shows and senseless noise,
And all which rank ambition breeds,
Which seem such beauteous flowers, and are such poisonous weeds!
II.
When God did man to his own likeness make,
As much as clay, though of the purest kind
By the Great Potter's art refined,
Could the Divine impression take,
He thought it fit to place him where
A kind of heaven, too, did appear,
As far as earth could such a likeness bear.
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