NO-ONE has described the season's fruitfulness with more charm and relish than Andrew Marvell (his younger contemporary Isaac Newton watched the fall of apples from another perspective!).

This marvellous poem also offers the memorable concept of green thoughts in green shades and the mock misogyny of preferring to live in paradise alone.

from THE GARDEN

How vainly men themselves amaze

To win the palm, the oak, or bays,

And their incessant labours see

Crowned from some single herb, or tree,

Whose short and narrow-verged shade

Does prudently their toils upbraid;

While all flowers and all trees do close

To weave the garlands of repose.

What wondrous life is this I lead!

Ripe apples drop about my head;

The luscious clusters of the vine

Upon my mouth do crush their wine;

The nectarine and curious peach

Into my hands themselves do reach;

Stumbling on melons, as I pass,

Ensnared with flowers, I fall on grass.

Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less,

Withdraws into its happiness;

The mind, that ocean where each kind

Does straight its own resemblance find;

Yet it creates, transcending these,

Far other worlds and other seas,

Annihilating all that's made

To a green thought in a green shade.

Such was that happy garden-state,

While man there walked without a mate:

After a place so pure and sweet,

What other help could yet be meet!

But 'twas beyond a mortal's share

To wander solitary there:

Two paradises 'twere in one

To live in paradise alone.