Hail sacred shades! cool, leavy House! <br />Chaste treasurer of all my vows, <br />And wealth! on whose soft bosom laid <br />My love's fair steps I first betrayed: <br />Henceforth no melancholy flight, <br />No sad wing, or hoarse bird of night, <br />Disturb this air, no fatal throat <br />Of raven, or owl, awake the note <br />Of our laid echo, no voice dwell <br />Within these leaves, but Philomel. <br />The poisonous ivy here no more <br />His false twists on the oak shall score, <br />Only the woodbine here may twine <br />As th'emblem of her love and mine; <br />Th'amorous sun shall here convey <br />His best beams, in thy shades to play; <br />The active air, the gentlest showers <br />Shall from his wings rain on thy flowers; <br />And the moon from her dewy locks <br />Shall deck thee with her brightest drops: <br />What ever can a fancy move, <br />Or feed the eye; be on this Grove; <br />And when at last the winds and tears <br />Of Heaven, with the consuming years, <br />Shall these green curls bring to decay, <br />And clothe thee in an aged gray: <br />(If ought a lover can foresee; <br />Or if we poets, prophets be) <br />From hence transplant'd, thou shalt stand <br />A fresh Grove in th'Elysian land; <br />Where (most blest pair!) as here on earth <br />Thou first didst eye our growth and birth; <br />So there again, thou'lt see us move <br />In our first innocence, and love: <br />And in thy shades, as now, so then, <br />We'll kiss, and smile, and walk again.<br /><br />Henry Vaughan<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/upon-the-priory-grove-his-usual-retirement/
