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C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Retirement

By Henry Vaughan (1621–1695)

FRESH fields and woods! the earth’s fair face!

God’s footstool! and man’s dwelling-place!

I ask not why the first believer

Did love to be a country liver,

Who to secure pious content

Did pitch by groves and wells his tent,

Where he might view the boundless skie,

And all these glorious lights on high,

With flying meteors, mists and showers,

Subjected hills, trees, meads, and flowers,

And every minute bless the King

And wise Creator of each thing.

I ask not why he did remove

To happy Mamre’s holy grove,

Leaving the cities of the plain

To Lot and his successless train.

All various lusts in cities still

Are found: they are the thrones of ill;

The dismal sinks where blood is spilled,

Cages with much uncleanness filled.

But rural shades are the sweet sense

Of piety and innocence:

They are the meek’s calm region, where

Angels descend and rule the sphære;

Where heaven lies leaguer, and the Dove

Duely as dew comes from above.

If Eden be on earth at all,

’Tis that which we the country call.