Читать книгу English Poets of the Eighteenth Century - Various - Страница 31

Near some fair town I'd have a private seat,

Built uniform, not little, nor too great:

Better, if on a rising ground it stood;

Fields on this side, on that a neighbouring wood.

It should within no other things contain,

But what are useful, necessary, plain:

Methinks 'tis nauseous, and I'd ne'er endure,

The needless pomp of gaudy furniture.

A little garden, grateful to the eye;

And a cool rivulet run murmuring by,

On whose delicious banks a stately row

Of shady limes, or sycamores, should grow.

At th' end of which a silent study placed,

Should with the noblest authors there be graced:

Horace and Virgil, in whose mighty lines

Immortal wit, and solid learning, shines;

Sharp Juvenal and amorous Ovid too,

Who all the turns of love's soft passion knew:

He that with judgment reads the charming lines,

In which strong art with stronger nature joins,

Must grant his fancy does the best excel;

His thoughts so tender, and expressed so well:

With all those moderns, men of steady sense,

Esteemed for learning, and for eloquence.

In some of these, as fancy should advise,

I'd always take my morning exercise:

For sure no minutes bring us more content,

Than those in pleasing useful studies spent.