I LOVE THE EARTH." 155 I love the sea she is my fellow-creature, My careful purveyor; she provides me store : She wafts my treasure from a foreign shore : But, Lord of oceans, when compared with Thee, What is the ocean, or her wealth to me? To heaven's high city I direct my journey, Without Thy presence earth gives no refection; The highest honours that the world can boast, The loudest flames that earth can kindle, be Without Thy presence wealth is bags of cares ; In having all things, and not Thee, what have I? I wish nor sea nor land; nor would I be [WILLIAM BROWNE was born at Tavistock, in Devonshire, in 1590, was educated at Oxford, and entered the Inner Temple, but did not follow the law as a profession. He lived in the family of the Earl of Pembroke, and realized the means of purchasing an estate. He died in 1645. His best poems were written before he was twenty years of age; and as he published none of them after he was thirty, they contain marks of puerility and imitations of other authors, and are without much vigour.] SWEET Country life, to such unknown, But, serving courts and cities, be Thou never ploughed the ocean's foam, To bring from thence the scorched clove; A COUNTRY LIFE. 149 Nor, with the loss of thy lov'd rest, Bring'st home the ingot from the west. Flies no thought higher than a fleece; Not craving others' larger bounds; For well thou know'st 'tis not th' extent Of land makes life, but sweet content. When now the cock, the ploughman's horn, Then to thy corn-fields thou dost go, Which, though well soil'd, yet thou dost know That the best compost for the lands Is the wise master's feet and hands. There, at the plough, thou find'st thy team, With a hind whistling there to them; Sweet as the blossoms of the vine. Here thou behold'st thy large, sleek neat, Unto the dewlaps up in meat; And, as thou look'st, the wanton steer, |