Fair is the leisure of life’s garden-ground: Pleasant is friendship’s voice & mirth’s soft sound. Sweet are the perfumed flowers; yea, yea, what bliss Sootheth like hope’s fresh scent of loveliness? Lovely, O nightingale, is thy lament; Ever to listening love thy plaint is dear; In the fond thought of love thy life is spent. Though in this world joy’s goal is but a name, Fair is thy fadeless hope, blest wanderer, Beauteous its gentle fire & flickering flame. From the pure lily heard I this clear song: ‘Happy their peaceful life who work no wrong; Sweet idle flowers, whom heav’n’s sweet airs do kiss; No conqu’ring king hath joy more fair than this.’
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