Worldly Paradise

Who can live in heart so glad
As the merry country lad?
Who upon a fair green balk
May at pleasure sit and walk,
And amid the azure skies,
See the morning sun arise;
While he hears in every spring,
How the birds do chirp and sing:
Or, before the hounds in cry,
See the hare go stealing by:
Or, along the shallow brook,
Angling with a baited hook,
See the fishes leap and play
In a blessed sunny day:
Or to hear the partridge call,
Till she have her covey all:
Or to see the subtle fox,
How the villain plies the box;
After feeding on his prey,
How he closely sneaks away,
Through the hedge and down the furrow
Till he gets into his burrow:
Then the bee to gather honey,
And the little black-haired coney,
On a bank for sunny place
With her forefeet wash her face:
Are not these, with thousands moe
Than the courts of kings do know,
The true pleasing spirits sights,
That may breed true love's delights?
But with all this happiness,
To behold that shepherdess,
To whose eyes all shepherds yield
All the fairest of the field,
Fair Aglaia in whose face,
Lives the shepherds' highest grace:
In whose worthy wonder praise,
See what her true shepherd says.
She is neither proud nor fine,
But in spirit more divine:
She can neither lour nor leer,
But a sweeter smiling cheer:
She had never painted face,
But a sweeter smiling grace:
She can never love dissemble,
Truth doth so her thoughts assemble
That, where wisdom guides her will,
She is kind and constant still.
All in sum she is that creature,
Of that truest comfort's Nature,
That doth show (but in exceedings)
How their praises had their breedings.
Let then poets fain their pleasure,
In their fictions of love's treasure:
Proud high spirits seek their graces,
In their idol painted faces:
My love's spirit's lowliness,
In affection's humbleness,
Under heav'n no happiness
Seeks but in this shepherdess.
For whose sake I say and swear,
By the passions that I bear,
Had I got a kingly grace,
I would leave my kingly place
And in heart be truly glad
To become a country lad;
Hard to lie, and go full bare,
And to feed on hungry fare:
So I might but live to be,
Where I might but sit to see,
Once a day, or all day long,
The sweet subject of my song:
In Aglaia's only eyes
All my worldly paradise.