Temple, William; Sieveking, Albert Forbes: Upon the gardens of Epicurus: with other XVIIth century garden essays (London: Chatto and Windus, 1908)

ANDREW MARVELL

167

The mind, that ocean where each kind
Does straight its own resemblance find ;
Yet it creates—transcending these—
Far other worlds and other seas ;
Annihilating all that’s made
To a green thought in a green shade.
Here at the fountain’s sliding foot,
Or at some fruit-tree’s mossy root,
Casting the bodie’s vest aside,
My soul into the boughs does glide :
There, like a bird it sits, and sings,
Then whets and claps its silver wings ;
And, till prepar’d for longer flight,
Waves in its plumes the various light.
Such was that happy garden-state,
While man there walk’d without a mate :
After a place so pure and sweet,
What other help could yet be meet 1
But ’twas beyond a mortal’s share
To wander solitary there :
Two paradises ’twere in one,
To live in paradise alone.