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The radiant Summer far exceeds the gladsome Spring in her garden beauties; some few of them—alas! that they are few—we must gossip about presently: meanwhile we cannot do better than read, at the same time fancy, this very fanciful description of Panglorie's Garden, by Giles Fletcher; 1610.
The garden like a ladie faire was cut,
That lay as if she slumbered in delight,
And to the open skies her eyes did shut.
The azure fields of heaven were 'sembled right
In a large round, set with the flowers of light:
The flow'rs de luce, and the round sparks of dew,
That hung upon their azure leaves, did show
Like twinkling starrs, that sparkle in the evening blew.
Upon a hillie bank her head she cast,
On which the bowre of Vain-delight was built.
White and red roses for her face wear plac't,
And for her tresses marigolds were spilt:
Them broadly she displaied, like flaming guilt,
Till in the ocean the glad day wear drowned;
Then up again her yellow locks she wound,
And with greene fillets in their prettie cauls them bound.
Why should I here depeint her lillie-hand,
Her veines of violets, her ermine brest,
Which there in orient colours living stand;
Or how her gowne with silken leaves is drest,
Or how her watchman, armed with boughie crest,
A wall of prim hid in his bushes bears,
Shaking at every winde theire leavie spears,
While she supinely sleeps; ne to be waked fears?
The sculptor of old proposed to make a statue of Mount Athos; this landscape-gardening Poet, spreading his sleeping
