heav'n gave thee with a wary hand,
More blessed in thy brass than land,
To keep cheap nature even and upright;
To cool, not cocker appetite.
Thus thou canst tersely live to satisfy
The belly chiefly, not the eye;
Keeping the barking stomach wisely quiet,
Less with a neat than needful diet.
But that which most makes sweet thy country life
Is the fruition of a wife:
Whom, stars consenting with thy fate, thou hast
Got not so beautiful as chaste:
By whose warm side thou dost securely sleep,
While love the sentinel doth keep,
With those deeds done by day, which ne'er affright
Thy silken slumbers in the night.
Nor has the darkness power to usher in
Fear to those sheets that know no sin;
But still thy wife, by chaste intentions led,
Gives thee each night a maidenhead.
The damask'd meadows and the pebbly streams
Sweeten and make soft your dreams:
The purling springs, groves, birds, and well-weav'd bowers,
With fields enamelled with flowers,
Present their shapes; while fantasy discloses
Millions of lilies mix'd with roses.
Then dream ye hear the lamb by many a bleat
Woo'd to come suck the milky teat:
While Faunus in the vision comes to keep
From rav'ning wolves the fleecy sheep.
With thousand such enchanting dreams, that meet
To make sleep not so sound as sweet:
Nor can these figures so thy rest endear
As not to rise when Chanticlere
Warns the last watch; but with the dawn dost rise
To work, but first to sacrifice;
Making thy peace with heav'n, for some late fault,
With holy-meal and spirting-salt.
Which done, thy painful thumb this sentence tells us,
_Jove for our labour all things sells us_.
Nor are thy daily and devout affairs
Attended with those desp'rate cares
Th' industrious merchant has; who, for to find
Gold, runneth to the Western Inde,
And back again, tortured with fears, doth fly,
Untaught to suffer poverty.
But thou at home, bless'd with securest ease,
Sitt'st, and believ'st that there be seas
And watery dangers; while thy whiter hap
But sees these things within thy map.
And viewing them with a more safe survey
Mak'st easy fear unto thee say,--
_"A heart thrice wall'd with oak and brass that man
Had, first durst plough the ocean"_.
Bu