A learned and a happy ignorance
 Divided me
 From all the vanity,
 From all the sloth, care, pain, and sorrow that advance
 The madness and the misery
 Of men. No error, no distraction I
 Saw soil the earth, or overcloud the sky.

 I knew not that there was a serpent's sting,
 Whose poison shed
 On men, did overspread
 The world; nor did I dream of such a thing
 As sin, in which mankind lay dead.
 They all were brisk and living wights to me,
 Yea, pure and full of immortality.

 Joy, pleasure, beauty, kindness, glory, love,
 Sleep, day, life, light,
 Peace, melody, my sight,
 My ears and heart did fill and freely move.
 All that I saw did me delight.
 The Universe was then a world of treasure,
 To me an universal world of pleasure.

 Unwelcome penitence was then unknown,
 Vain costly toys,
 Swearing and roaring boys,
 Shops, markets, taverns, coaches, were unshown;
 So all things were that drown'd my joys:
 No thorns chok'd up my path, nor hid the face
 Of bliss and beauty, nor eclips'd the place.

 Only what Adam in his first estate,
 Did I behold;
 Hard silver and dry gold
 As yet lay under ground; my blessed fate
 Was more acquainted with the old
 And innocent delights which he did see
 In his original simplicity.

 Those things which first his Eden did adorn,
 My infancy
 Did crown. Simplicity
 Was my protection when I first was born.
 Mine eyes those treasures first did see
 Which God first made. The first effects of love
 My first enjoyments upon earth did prove;

 And were so great, and so divine, so pure;
 So fair and sweet,
 So true; when I did meet
 Them here at first, they did my soul allure,
 And drew away my infant feet
 Quite from the works of men; that I might see
 The glorious wonders of the Deity.