In thought or act accountable to none
But to himself, and to the Gods alone.
O sweetness of content, seraphic joy!
Which nothing wants, and nothing can destroy.
Where dwells this peace, this freedom of the mind?
Where but in shades remote from human kind;
In flow'ry vales, where nymphs and shepherds meet,
But never comes within the palace-gate.
Farewel then cities, courts, and camps farewel,
Welcome ye groves, here let me ever dwell,
From care and bus'ness, and mankind remove,
All but the Muses, and inspiring love:
How sweet the morn, how gentle is the night!
How calm the evening, and the day how bright!
From thence, as from a hill, I view below
The crowded world, a mighty wood in shew,
Where several wand'rers travel day and night,
By different paths, and none are in the right.

In 1696 his Comedy called the She Gallants was acted at the
Theatre-Royal[C] in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields. He afterwards altered this
Comedy, and published it among his other works, under the title of
Once a Lover and Always a Lover, which, as he observes in the preface,
is a new building upon an old foundation.

'It appeared first under the name of the She-Gallants, and by the
preface then prefixed to it, is said to have been the Child of a
Child. By taking it since under examination; so many years after, the
author flatters himself to have made a correct Comedy of it; he found
it regular to his hand; the scene constant to one place, the time not