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

Though I carry always some ill-nature about me, yet it is, I hope, no more than is in this world necessary for a preservative.

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

As lines, so loves oblique, may well Themselves in every angle greet; But ours, so truly parallel, Though infinite, can never meet.

But at my back I always hear Time's winged chariot hurrying near.

My vegetable love should grow Vaster than empires, and more slow.

How could such sweet and wholesome hours be reckoned, but in herbs and flowers?