Upon The Priory Grove His Usual Retirement

Hail sacred shades! cool, leavy House!

Chaste treasurer of all my vows,

And wealth! on whose soft bosom laid My love's fair steps I first betrayed:

Henceforth no melancholy flight,

No sad wing, or hoarse bird of night,

Disturb this air, no fatal throat Of raven, or owl, awake the note Of our laid echo, no voice dwell Within these leaves, but Philomel.

The poisonous ivy here no more His false twists on the oak shall score,

Only the woodbine here may twine As th'emblem of her love and mine;

Th'amorous sun shall here convey His best beams, in thy shades to play;

The active air, the gentlest showers Shall from his wings rain on thy flowers;

And the moon from her dewy locks Shall deck thee with her brightest drops:

What ever can a fancy move,

Or feed the eye; be on this Grove;

And when at last the winds and tears Of Heaven, with the consuming years,

Shall these green curls bring to decay,

And clothe thee in an aged gray: (If ought a lover can foresee;

Or if we poets, prophets be) From hence transplant'd, thou shalt stand A fresh Grove in th'Elysian land;

Where (most blest pair!) as here on earth Thou first didst eye our growth and birth;

So there again, thou'lt see us move In our first innocence, and love:

And in thy shades, as now, so then,

We'll kiss, and smile, and walk again.