What wondrous life is this I lead! Ripe apples drop about my head.

I have a garden of my own, But so with roses overgrown, And lilies, that you would it guess To be a little wilderness.

Now let us sport us while we may; And now, like amorous birds of prey, Rather at once our time devour, Than languish in his slow-chapped power.

Ye country comets, that portend No war, nor prince's funeral, Shining unto no higher end Than to presage the grasses fall. . . .

Gather the flowers, but spare the buds.

Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less, Withdraws into its happiness; 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 glade ... Such was that happy garden-state.

Self-preservation, nature's first great law, all the creatures, except man, doth awe.