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The process.
Heat and cold, and wind and steam,
Moisture and drought, mice, worms, and swarming flies
Minute as dust and numberless, oft work
Dire disappointment that admits no cure,
And which no care can obviate. It were long,
Too long to tell the expedients and the shifts
Which he that fights a season so severe
Devises, while he guards his tender trust,
And oft, at last, in vain. The learn'd and wise
Sarcastic would exclaim, and judge the song
Cold as its theme, and like its theme, the fruit
Of too much labour, worthless when produced.

Who loves a garden, loves a green-house too.
Unconscious of a less propitious clime
There blooms exotic beauty, warm and snug,
While the winds whistle and the snows descend.
The spiry myrtle with unwithering leaf

Shines there and flourishes. The golden boast
Of Portugal and western India there,
The ruddier orange and the paler lime,
Peep through their polish'd foliage at the storm,
And seem to smile at what they need not fear.
The amomum there with intermingling flowers
And cherries hangs her twigs. Geranium boasts
Her crimson honours, and the spangled beau
Ficoides, glitters bright the winter long.
All plants of every leaf 20 that can endure

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The winter's frown, if screen'd from his shrewd bite, Live there and prosper. Those Ausonia claims, Levantine regions these; the Azores send

20 Flowers of all hue. Par. Lost, iv. 256

Their jessamine, her jessamine remote
Caffraria; foreigners from many lands
They form one social shade, as if convened
By magic summons of the Orphean lyre.

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Yet just arrangement, rarely brought to pass
But by a master's hand, disposing well
The gay diversities of leaf and flower,

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Must lend its aid to illustrate all their charms,
And dress the regular yet various scene.

Plant behind plant aspiring, in the van
The dwarfish, in the rear retired, but still
Sublime above the rest, the statelier stand.

So once were ranged the sons of ancient Rome,
A noble show! while Roscius trod the stage;
And so, while Garrick as renown'd as he,
The sons of Albion,-fearing each to lose
Some note of Nature's music from his lips,
And covetous of Shakespeare's beauty seen
In flash of his far-beaming eye.

every
Nor taste alone and well-contrived display
Suffice to give the marshal'd ranks the grace
Of their complete effect. Much yet remains
Unsung, and many cares are yet behind

And more laborious; cares on which depends
Their vigour, injured soon, not soon restored.
The soil must be renew'd, which often wash'd
Loses its treasure of salubrious salts,
And disappoints the roots; the slender roots
Close interwoven where they meet the vase

21 While friends beheld thee give with eye, voice, mien,
More than theatric force to Shakespeare's scene.

Wordsworth. On Sir G. Beaumont.

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Must smooth be shorn away; the sapless branch
Must fly before the knife; the wither'd leaf
Must be detach'd, and where it strews the floor
Swept with a woman's neatness, breeding else
Contagion, and disseminating death.

Discharge but these kind offices, (and who

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Would spare, that loves them, offices like these?)
Well they reward the toil. The sight is pleased, 620
The scent regaled; each odoriferous leaf,
Each opening blossom freely breathes abroad
Its gratitude, and thanks him with its sweets.
So manifold, all pleasing in their kind,
All healthful, are the employs of rural life,
Reiterated as the wheel of time

Runs round, still ending, and beginning still.
Nor are these all. To deck the shapely knoll
That softly swell'd and gaily dress'd, appears
A flowery island from the dark green lawn
Emerging, must be deemed a labour due

To no mean hand, and asks the touch of taste.
Here also grateful mixture of well match'd

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And sorted hues, (each giving each relief,

And by contrasted beauty shining more,)

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Is needful. Strength may wield the ponderous spade 22,
May turn the clod, and wheel the compost home,
But elegance, chief grace the garden shows

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Coarse complexions

And cheeks of sorry grain will serve to ply
The sampler, and to tease the huswife's wool:
What need a vermeil-tinctured lip for that,
Love-darting eyes, or tresses like the morn?

Comus,749

And most attractive, is the fair result

Of thought, the creature of a polish'd mind.
Without it, all is Gothic as the scene

To which the insipid citizen resorts

Near yonder heath; where industry mispent,

But proud of his uncouth ill-chosen task,

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Has made a heaven on earth; with suns and moons
Of close-ramm'd stones has charged the incumber'd soil,
And fairly laid the zodiac in the dust.

He therefore who would see his flowers disposed
Sightly and in just order, ere he gives

The beds the trusted treasure of their seeds

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Forecasts the future whole; that when the scene
Shall break into its preconceived display,
Each for itself, and all as with one voice
Conspiring, may attest his bright design.
Nor even then, dismissing as perform'd
His pleasant work, may he suppose it done.
Few self-supported flowers endure the wind
Uninjured, but expect the upholding aid 23
Of the smooth-shaven prop, and neatly tied
Are wedded thus like beauty to old age,
For interest sake, the living to the dead.
Some clothe the soil that feeds them, far diffused

23 Man, like the generous vine, supported lives,
The strength he gains is from the embrace he gives.
Essay on Man, iii. 311.

Or they led the vine

To wed her elm; she spoused about him twines
Her marriageable arms, and with her brings
Her dower, the adopted clusters, to adorn
His barren leaves.

Pur. Lost, v. 215.

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And lowly creeping, modest and yet fair,

Like virtue, thriving most where little seen.
Some more aspiring catch the neighbour shrub
With clasping tendrils, and invest his branch
Else unadorn'd, with many a gay festoon
And fragrant chaplet, recompensing well

The strength they borrow with the grace they lend.
All hate the rank society of weeds

Noisome, and ever greedy to exhaust
The impoverish'd earth; an overbearing race,
That like the multitude made faction-mad
Disturb good order, and degrade true worth.

Oh blest seclusion from a jarring world
Which he thus occupied, enjoys! Retreat
Cannot indeed to guilty man restore
Lost innocence, or cancel follies past;

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But it has peace, and much secures the mind
From all assaults of evil, proving still

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A faithful barrier, not o'erleap'd with ease
By vicious custom, raging uncontrol'd
Abroad, and desolating public life.
When fierce temptation seconded within
By traitor appetite, and arm'd with darts
Temper'd in hell, invades the throbbing breast,
To combat may be glorious, and success
Perhaps may crown us; but to fly is safe 24.
Had I the choice of sublunary good,

What could I wish, that I

possess not here?

2 Who quits a world where strong temptations try, And since 'tis hard to combat learns to fly.

Des. Village.

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