HKB
We no where Art do so triumphant see, As when it Grafts or Buds the Tree; In other things we count it to excel, If it a Docile Scholar can appear To Nature, and but imitate her well; It over-rules, and is her Master here. It imitates her Makers Power Divine, And changes her sometimes, and sometimes does refine: It does, like Grace, the fallen Tree restore To its blest State of Paradise before: Who would not joy to see his conquering hand O’er all the vegetable World command? And the wild Giants of the Wood receive What Law he’s pleas’d to give? He bids th’ ill-natur’d Crab produce The gentle Apples Winy Juice; The golden Fruit that worthy is Of Galetea’s purple Kiss; He does the savage Hawthorn teach To bear the Medlar and the Pear, He bids the rustick Plumb to rear A noble Trunk, and be a Peach, Ev’n Daphnes Coyness he does mock, And weds the Cherry to her stock, Though she refus’d Apollo’s suit; Ev’n she, that chast and Virgin-tree Now wonders at her self, to see That she’s a Mother made, and blushes in her fruit.
Methinks I see Great Diocletian walk In the Salonian Gardens noble Shade, Which by his own Imperial hands was made: I see him smile, methinks, as he does talk With the Ambassadors, who come in vain T’ entice him to a Throne again: If I, my Friends (said he) should to you show All the Delights, which in these Gardens grow; ’Tis likelier much, that you should with me stay, Than ’tis that you should carry me away: And trust me not, my Friends, if every day, I walk not here with more delight, Than ever after the most happy fight, In Triumph to the Capitol I rod, To thank the gods, and to be thought my self almost a god.
Chertsea, Aug 16, 1666. Abraham Cowley.
DENDROLOGIA
THE FIRST BOOK