So have I seen at sea, when whirling winds
Hurry the bark, but more the seamen's minds,
Who with mistaken course salute the sand,
And threatening rocks misapprehend for land, —
While baleful tritons to the shipwreck guide.
Hurry the bark, but more the seamen's minds,
Who with mistaken course salute the sand,
And threatening rocks misapprehend for land, —
While baleful tritons to the shipwreck guide.
Marvell - Poems
129
The fatal bark him boards with grappling fire,
And safely through its port the Dutch retire.
That precious life he yet disdains to save,
Or with known art to try the gentle wave.
Much him the honour of his ancient race
Inspired, nor would he his own deeds deface ;
And secret joy in his calm soul does rise,
That Monk looks on to see liow Douglas dies.
Like a glad lover the fierce fiames lie meets.
And tries his first embraces in their sheets ;
His shape exact, which the bright fiames
enfolds
Like the sun's statue stands of burnished gold ;
Round the transparent fire about him glows,
As the clear amber on the bees does close.
And, as on angels' heads their glories shine,
His burning locks adorn his face divine.
But when in his immortal mind he felt
His altering form and soldered limbs to melt,
Down on the deck he laid himself, and died,
With his dear sword reposing by his side.
And on the fiaming plank so rests his head.
As one that warmed himself, and went to bed.
His ship bums down, and with his relics sinks,
And the sad stream beneath his ashes drinks.
Fortunate boy ! if either pencil's fame,
Or if my verse can propagate thy name.
When CEta and Alcides are forgot,
Our English youth shall sing the valiant Scot.
9
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180 THE POEMS
Sbip-saddles, Pegasas, thou needst not brag,
Sometimes the galloway proves the better nag.
Shall not a death so generous, when told,
Unite our distance, fill our breaches old ?
So in the Roman foinim, Curtius brave
Galloping down, closed up the gaping cave.
No more discourse of Scotch and English race.
Nor chant the fabulous hunt of Chevy-Chace ;
Mixed in Corinthian metal at thy flame.
Our nations melting thy Colossus frame.
Prick down the point, whoever has the art,
Where nature Scotland does from England
part; —
Anatomists may sooner ^x the cells
Where life resides, and understanding dwelb.
But this we know, though that exceeds our
skill,
That whosoever separates them does ill.
Will you the Tweed that sullen bounder call,
Of soil, of wit, of manners, and of all ?
Why draw you not, as well, the thrifty line
From Thames, from Humber, or at least the
Tyne?
So may we the state-corpulence redress,
And little England, when we please, make less.
What ethic river is this wond'rous Tweed,
Whose one bank virtue, t'other vice, does
breed ?
Or what new perpendicular does rise.
Up from her streams, continued to the skies.
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OF MARVELL. 131
That between us the common air should bar,
And split the influence of every star ?
But *who considers right, will find indeed,
'Tis Holy Island parts us, not the Tweed.
Nothing but clergy could us two seclude,
No Scotch was ever like a bishop's feud.
All Litanies in this have wanted faith.
There's no deliver us from a bishop* s wrath.
Never shall Calvin pardoned be for sales, \
Never, for Burnet's sake, the Lauderdales ;r C
For Becket's sake, Kent always shall have tales. )
Who fcermons e'er can pacify and prayers ?
Or to the joint stools reconcile the chairs ?
Though kingdoms join, yet church will kirk
oppose;
The mitre still divides, the crown does close ;
As in Hogation week they whip us round.
To keep in tim« the Scotch and English bound.
What the ocean binds is by the bishops rent,
As seas make islands in the continent.
Nature in vain us in one land compiles.
If the cathedral still shall have its isles.
Nothing, not bogs nor sands nor seas nor Alps,
Separates the world so as the bishops scalps ;
Stretch for the line their surcingle alone,
'Twill make a more inhabitable zone.
The friendly loadstone has not more combined,
Than bishops cramped the commerce of mankind.
Had it not been for such a bias strong.
Two nations ne'er had missed the mark so long.
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132 THE rOEMS
The world in all doth but two nations bear,
The good, the bad, and these mixed everywhere ;
Under each pole place either of these two.
The bad will basely, good will bravely, do ;
And few, indeed, can parallel our climes,
For worth heroic, or heroic crimes^
The trial would, however, be too nice,
Which stronger were, a Scotch or English vice ;
Or whether the same virtue would reflect.
From Scotch or English heart, the same effect.
Nation is all but name, a Shibboleth,
Where a mistaken accent causes death.
In Paradise names only nature showed.
At Babel names from pride and discord flowed ;
And ever since men, with a female spite,
First call each other names, and then they fight.
Scotland and England cause a just uproar ;
Do man and wife signify rogue and whore ?
Say but a Scot and straight we fall to sides ;
That syllable like a Picts* wall divides.
Rational men's words pledges are of peace ;
Perverted, serve dissension to increase.
For shame extirpate from each loyal breast
That senseless rancour, against interest.
One king, one faith, one language, and one i«le,
English and Scotch, 'tis all but cross and pile.
Charles, our great soul, this only understands ;
He our affections both, and wills, commands ;
And where twin-sympathies cannot alone.
Knows the last secret, how to make us one.
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OP MARYELL. 133
Just SO the prudent husbandman, that sees
The idle tumult of his factious bees,
The morning dews, and flowers, neglected grown,
The hive a comb-case, every bee a drone,
Powders them o'er, till none discerns his foes,
And all themselves in meal and friendship lose ;
The insect kingdom straight begins to thrive.
And all work honey for the common hive.
Pardon, young hero, this so long transport.
Thy death more noble did the same extort.
My former satire for this verse forget,
My fault against my recantation set
I single did against a nation write.
Against a nation thou didst singly fight.
My differing crimes do more thy virtue raise.
And, such my rashness, best thy valour praise.
Here Douglas smiling said, he did intend,
Afler such frankness shown, to be his friend.
Forewarned him therefore, lest in time he were
Metempsychos'd to some Scotch Presbyter.
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134 THE POEMS
A HORATIAN ODE
UPON CROMWELL'S RETURN FROM IRELAND.
The forward youth that woald appear.
Must now forsake his muses dear.
Nor in the shadows sing
His numbers languishing :
'Tis time to leave the books in dusty
And oil the unused armour's rust,
Removing from the wall
The corselet of the hall.
So restless Cromwell could not cease
In the inglorious arts of peace,
But through adventurous war
Urged his active star ;
And, like the three-forked lightning, first
Breaking the clouds where it was nurst,
Did thorough his own side
His fiery way divide ;
(For 'tis all one to courage high,
The emulous, or enemy,
And with such to inclose,
Is more than to oppose ;)
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OF MARVELL.
Then burning througli the air he went,
And palaces and temples rent ;
And Caesar's head at last
Did through his laurels blast.
'Tis madness to resist or blame
The force of angry heaven's flame ;
And if we would speak true,
Much to the man is due,
Who from his private gardens, where
He lived reserved and austere,
As if his highest plot
To plant the bergamot,
Could bj industrious valour climb
To ruin the great work of Time,
And cast the kingdoms old.
Into another mould.
Though Justice against Fate complain,
And plead the ancient rights in vain,
[But those do hold or break,
As men are strong or weak,]
Nature, that hateth emptiness.
Allows of penetration less,
And therefore must make room
Where greater spirits comtj.
What field of all the civil war.
Where his were not the deepest scar ?
And Hampton shows what part
He had of wiser art ;
Where, twining subtile feai*s with hope,
He wove a net of such a scope
13. 5
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13G THK POKMS
That Charles himself might chase
To Carisbrook s narrow cjisc,
That thence the royal actor borne,
The tragic scaffold might adorn,
While round the armed bands.
Did clap their bloody hands :
He nothing common did, or mean,
Upon that memorable scene.
But with his keener eye
The axe's edge did try ;
Nor called the gods with vulgar spite
To vindicate his helpless right,
But bowed his comely head
Down, as upon a bed.
This was that memorable hour.
Which first assured the forced power ;
So, when they did design
The . Capitol's first line,
A bleeding bead, where they begun,
Did fright the architects to run ;
And yet in that the state
Foresaw its happy fate.
And now the Irish are ashamed
To see themselves in one year tamed ;
So much one man can do,
That does both act and know.
They can aflirm his praises best.
And have, though overcome, confessed
How good he is, how just,
And fit for highest trust.
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OF MARVELL. 137
Nor yet grown stiffer with command.
But still in the republic's hand,
(How fit he is to sway,
That can so well obey ! )
He to the Commons* feet presents
A kingdom for his first year's rents ;
And, what he may, forbears
His fame, to make it theirs ;
And has his sword and spoils ungirt,
To lay them at the public's skirt :
So when the falcon high
Falls heavy from the sky,
She, having killed, no more doth search.
But on the next green bough to perch ;
Where, when he first does lure.
The falconer has her sure.
What may not then our isle presume.
While victory his crest does plume?
What may not others fear,
If thus he crowns each year ?
As Cffisar, he, ere long, to Gaul,
To Italy a Hannibal,
And to all states not free,
Shall climacteric be.
The Pict no shelter now shall find
Within his party-coloured mind.
But, from this valour sad,
Shrink underneath the plaid ;
Happy, if in the tuAed brake,
The English hunter him mistake.
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138 THE POEMS
Nor lay his hounds in near
The Caledonian deer.
But thou, the war's and fortune's son,
March indefatigably on,
And for the last effect.
Still keep the sword erect ;
Beside the force it has to fright
The spirits of the shady night.
The same arts that did gain
A power, must it maintain.
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OP MARVELL. 139
THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY
OF
THB GOVSRNBCKNT UNDRR HIS HIGHKESS
THE LORD PROTECTOR.
Like the vain curlings of the watery maze,
Which in smooth streams a sinking weight doth
raise,
So man, declining, always disappears
In the weak circles of increasing years ;
And his short tumults of themselves compose.
While flowing time above his head doth close.
Cromwell alone, with greater vigour runs
(Sun-like) the stages of succeeding suns,
And still the day which he doth next restore.
Is the just wonder of the day before ;
Cromwell alone doth with new lustre spring.
And shines the jewel of the yearly ring.
'TIS he the force of scattered time contracts.
And in one year the work of ages acts ;
While heavy monarchs make a wide retprn.
Longer and more malignant than Saturn,
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140 THE POEMS
And they, though all Platonic years should
reign,
In the same posture would be found again ;
Their earthly projects under ground they lay,
More slow and brittle than the China clay ;
Well may they strive to leave them on their
son,
For one thing never was by one king done.
Yet some, more active, for a fix^ntier town
Took in by proxy, begs a false renown ;
Another triuraplis at the public cost,
And will have won, if he no more have lost ;
They fight by others, but in person wrong,
And only are against their subjects strong ;
Their other wars are but a feigned contest.
This common enemy is still opprest ;
If conquerors, on them they turn their might,
If conquered, on them they wreak their spite ;
They neither build the temple in their days.
Nor matter for succeeding founders raise ;
Nor sacred prophecies consult within.
Much less themselves to perfect them begin ;
No other care they bear of things above,
But with astrologers, divine of Jove,
To know how long their planet yet reprieves
From the deserved fate their guilty lives.
Thus (image-like) a useless time they tell.
And with vain sceptre strike the hourly bell.
Nor more contribute to the state of things,
Than wooden heads unto the vioFs strings,
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OF MARVKLL. 141
While indefatigable Cromwell tries,
And cuts his way $till nearer to the skies,
Learning a music in the region clear,
To tune this lower to that higher sphere^
So when Amphion did the lute command,
Which the God gave him, with his gentle hand,.
The rougher stones, unto his measures hew^cd.
Danced up in order from the quarries rude 'r
This took a lower, that a higher place,.
As he the treble altered, or the base ;
No note he struck, but a new story laid.
And the great work ascended while he played-
The listening structures he with wonder eyed,.
And still new stops to various time applied ;
Now through the strings a martial rage he
throws,
And joining, straight the Theban tower arose ;
Then as he strokes them with a touch more
sweet,
The flocking marbles in a palace meet ;
But for he most the graver notes did try,
Therefore the temples reared their columns high :
Thus, ere he ceased, his sacred lute creates
The harmonious city of the seven gates.
- Such was that wondrous order and consent,
When Cromwell tuned the ruling instrument ;
While tedious statesmen nmny years did hack,
Framing a liberty that still went back ;
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142 lilK rOKMS
Whose nuinerous gorge coul«l swallow in an hour.
That island which the sea cannot devour:
Then our Amphion issues out and sings,
And once he struck, and twice the powerful
strings.
The Commonwealth then first together came.
And each one entered in the willing frame.
All other matter yields, and may be ruled,
But who the minds of stubborn men can build ?
No quarry bears a stone so hardly wrought,
Nor with such labour fix>m its centre brought :
None to be sunk in the foundation bends,
Each in the house the highest place contends ;
And each the hand that lays him will direct.
And some fall back upon the architect ;
Yet all, composed by his attractive song,
Into the animated city throng.
The Commonwealth does through their cen-
tres all
Draw the circumference of the public wall ;
The crossest spirits liere do take their part,
Fastening the coiitignation which they thwart :
And they who. sti nature leads them to divide,
Uphold, this ones and that the other side ;
But the most e(|iial still sustain the height,
And they, as pillar-, keep the work upright,
While the resistance of opposed minds.
The fabric, as with arches, stronger binds,
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OP MARVELL. 143
Which, on the basis of a senate free,
Knit by the roof's protecting weight, agree.
When for his foot he thus a place had found,
He hurls e'er since the world about him round ;
And in his seveial aspects, like a star.
Here shines in peace, and thither shoots a war,
While by his beams observing princes steer.
And wisely court the influence they fear.
O, would they rather, by his pattern won,
Kiss the approaching, nor yet angry sun,
And in their numbered footsteps humbly tread
The path where holy oracles do lead.
How might they under such a captain raise
The great designs kept for the latter days !
But mad with reason, [so miscalled] of state, •
They know them not, and what they know not,
hate.
Hence still they sing Hosanna to the whore.
And, him whom they should massacre, adore ;
But Indians, whom they should convert, subdue,
Nor teach, but traffic with, or bum the Jew.
Unhappy princes, ignorantly bred.
By malice some, by error more misled,
If gracious Heaven to my life give length.
Leisure to time, and to my weakness strength,
Then shall 1 once with graver accents shake
Your regal sloth and your long slumbers wake,
Like the shrill huntsman that prevents the east;
Winding his horn to kings that chase the bejCst !
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144 THE POEMS
mi then my muse shall halloa far behind
Angelic Cromwell, who outwings the wind.
And in dark nights, and in cold days, alone
Pnrsnes the monster thorough every throne.
Which shrinking to her Roman den impure.
Gnashes her gory teeth ; nor there secure.
Hence oft I think, if in some happy hour
High grace sliould meet in one with highest
power.
And then a seasonable people still
Should bend to his, as he to Heaven's will.
What we might hope, what wonderful effect
From such a wished conjuncture might reflect !
Sure, the mysterious work, where none with-
stand.
Would forthwith finish under such a hand ;
Foreshortened time its useless course would stay,
And soon precipitate the latest day :
But a thick cloud about that morning lies.
And intercepts the beams to mortal eyes,
That 'tis the most which we determine can,
If these the times, then this must be the man v
And well he therefore docs, and well has guessed,
Who in his age has always forward pressed
And knowing not where Heaven's choice may
light,
Girds yet his sword, and ready stands to fight.
But men, alas ! as if ihey nothing cared,
Look on, all unconcerned, or unprepared ;
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OF MARVELL. 145
And stars still fall, and still the dragon's tail
Swinges the volumes of its horrid flail ;
For the great justice that did first suspend
The world by sin, does by the same extend.
Hence that blest day still counterpoised wastes,
The ill delaying, what the elected hastes ;
Hence, landing. Nature to new seas is tost,
And good designs still with their authors lost.
And thou, great Cromwell, for whose happy
birth
A mould was chosen out of better earth,
Whose saint-like mother we did lately see
Live out an age, long as a pedigree.
That she might seem, could we the fall dispute,
To have smelt the blossom, and not eat the fruit, —
Though none does of more lasting parents grow,
Yet never any did them honour so.
Though th^u thine heart from evil still sus-
tained.
And always hast thy tongue from fraud refraincrl,
Thou, who so oft through storms of thundering
lead
Hast borne securely thine undaunted head ;
Thy breast through poniarding conspiracies,
Drawn from the sheath of lying prophecies.
The f>roof beyond all other force or skill.
Our sins endanger, and shall one day kill.
How neai- they failed, and in thy sudden fall,
At oiHH' assayed to overturn us all ?
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146 THE POEMS
Our British fury, struggling to be free,
Hurried thy horses, while they hurried thee ;
When thou hadst almost quit thy mortal Ciires,
And soiled in dust thy crown of silver hairs.
Let this one sorrow interweave among
The other glories of our yearly song ;
Like skilful looms, which through the costly
thread
Of purling ore, a shining wave do shed,
So shall the tears we on past grief employ,
Still as they trickle, glitter in our joy ;
So with more modesty we may be true,
And speak, as of the dead, the praises due,
While impious men, deceived with pleasure
short,
'On their own hopes shall find the fall retort.
But the poor beasts, wanting their ^oble guide,
[What could they more ? ] shrunk guiltily aside :
First winged fear transports them far away,
And leaden sorrow then their flight did stay.
See how they both their towering crests abate,
And the green grass and their known mangers
hate,
Nor through wide nostrils snuff the wanton air,
Nor their round hoofs or curled manes compare ;
With wandering eyes and restless ears they
stood,
And with slirill n*i};liiiigs asked him of the wood.
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OP MARVELL. 147
Thou, Cromwell, falling, not a stupid tree^
Or rock so savage, but it mourned for thee ;
And all about was heard a panic groan,
As if that nature's self were overthrown.
It seemed the earth did from the centre tear.
It seemed the sun was fallen from his sphere :
Justice obstructed lay, and reason fooled,
Courage disheartened, and religion cooled ;
A dismal silence through the palace went,
And then loud shrieks the vaulted marbles rent :
Such as the dying chorus sings by turns,
And to deaf seas and ruthless tempests mourns.
When now they sink, and now the plundering
streams,
Break up each deck and rip the open seams.
But thee triumphant, hence, the fiery car
And fiery steeds had borne out of the war,
From the low world and thankless men, above
Unto the kingdom blest of peace and love :
We only mourned ourselves in thine ascent,
Whom thou hadst left beneath with mantle rent,
For all delight of life thou then didst lose.
When to command thou didst thyself depose,
Resigning up thy privacy so dear.
To turn the headstrong people's charioteer ;
For to be Cromwell was a greater thing.
Than aught below, or yet above, a king :
Therefore thou rather didst thyself depress,
Yielding to rule, because it made thee less.
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148 TUB POEMS
For neither didst thou from the first apply
Thy sober spirit unto things too high ;
But in tin'ne own fields exereisedst long
A healthful mind within a body strong.
Till at the seventh time, thou in the skies,
As a small cloud, like a man's hand didst rise ;
Then did thick mists and winds the air deform,
And down at last thou pouredst the fertile i>iovm
Which to the thirety land did plenty bring ;
But thou, forewarned, overtook and wet the king.
What since thou didst, a higher force thee pushed
Still from behind, and it before thee rushed.
Though undiscerned among the tumult blind,
Who think those high decrees by man designed,
'Twas Heaven would not that ere thy power
should cease.
But walk still middle betwixt war and peace ;
Choosing each stone, and poising every weight,
Trying the measures of the breadth and height,
Here pulling down, and there erecting new.
Founding a firm state by proportions true.
When Gideon so did from the war retreat.
Yet by the conquest of two kings grown great,
He on the peace extends a warlike power,
And Israel, silent, saw him rase the tower.
And how lie 8uccoth*s elders durst suppress
With thorns and briars of the wilderness ;
No king might ever such a force have done,
Yet would not he be lord, nor yet his son.
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OP MARVELL. 149
Thou with the same strength, and a heart so
plain,
Didst like thine olive still refuse to reign ;
Though why should others all thy labour spoil,
And brambles be anointed with thine oil,
Whose climbing flame, without a timely stop,
Had quickly levelled every cedar's top ?
Therefore, fii*st growing to thyself a law,
The ambitious shrubs thou in just time didst awe.
So have I seen at sea, when whirling winds
Hurry the bark, but more the seamen's minds,
Who with mistaken course salute the sand,
And threatening rocks misapprehend for land, —
While baleful tritons to the shipwreck guide.
And corposants* along the tacklings slide, —
The passengers all wearied out before,
Giddy, and wishing for the fatal shore, —
Some lusty mate, who with more careful eye,
Counted the hours, and every star did spy,
The helm does from the artless steersman strain.
And doubles back unto the safer main :
What though awhile they grumble, discontent ?
Saving himself, he does their loss prevent.
*Tis not a freedom that, where all command,
Nor tyranny, where one does them withstand ;
* Marine meteors, which Portuguese nuiriners call the
Bodies of the Saints; corpos santos.
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160 TOE POKMS
But who of both the bounders knows to lay,
Him, as their father, must the state obey.
Thou and thy house, like Noah's eight did rest,
Left by the war's flood, on the mountain's crest •,
And the large vale lay subject to thy will,
Which thou but as an husbandman, wouldst till ;
And only didst for others plant the vine
Of Liberty, not drunken with its wine.
That sober liberty which, men may have.
That they enjoy, but more they vainly crave ;
And such as to their parent's tents do press,
May show their own, not see his nakedness.
Yet such a clammish issue still doth rage,
The shame and plague both of the land and age,
Who watched thy halting, and thy fall divide,
Rejoicing when thy foot had slipped aside,
That their new king might the fifth sceptre
shake.
And make the world, by his example, quake ;
Whose frantic army, should they want for men,
Might muster heresies, so one were ten.
What thy misfortune, they the spirit call,
And their religion only is to fall.
Oh Mahomet ! now couldst thou rise again,
Thy Till )in«; -sickness should have made thee nign ;
While Fcak and Simpson would in many a toin**
Have Nvrit the comments of thy sacred foam :
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OF MAUVELL. 151
For soon thou might'st have passed among their
ranty
AVer't but for thine unmoved tulipant ;
As thou must needs have owned them of thy
band,
For prophecies fit to be alcoraned.
Accursed locusts, whom your king does spit
Out of the centre of the unbottomed pit ;
Wanderers, adulterers, liars, Muntzer*s rest,
Sorcerers, atheists, Jesuits, possest.
You, who the Scriptures and the laws deface.
With the same liberty as points and lace ;
O race ! most hypocritically strict,
Bent to reduce us to the ancient Pict,
Well may you act the Adam and the Eve,
Ay, and the serpent too, that did deceive.
But the great captain, now the danger's o*er,
Makes you, for his sake, tremble one fit more ;
And, to your spite, returning yet alive,
Does with himself, all that is good, revive.
So, when first man did through the morning dew.
See the bright sun his shining race pursue,
All day he followed, with unwearied sight.
Pleased with that other world of moving light ;
But thought him, M' hen he missed his setting
beams.
Sunk in the hills, or plunged below the strr. uiis,
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152 THE POEMS
While dismal blacks hung round the universe,
And stars, like tapers, burned upon his hearse ;
And owls and ravens with their screeching noise^
Did make their funerals sadder by their joys.
His weeping eyes the doleful vigils keep.
Not knowing yet the night was made for sleep.
Still to the west, where he him lost, he turned.
And with such accents, as despairing, mourned ;
*' Why did mine eyes once see so bright a ray ?
Or why day last no longer than a day ? '*
When straight the sun behind him he descried,
Smiling serenely from the further side.
So while our star that gives us light and heat.
Seemed now a long and gloomy night to threat.
Up from the other world his flame doth dart.
And princes, shining through their windows, start ;
Who their suspected counsellors refuse.
And credulous ambassadors accuse:
" Is this," saith one, " the nation that we read,
" Spent with both wars, under a captain dead !
" Yet rig a navy, while we dress us late,
" And ere we dine, rase and rebuild a state ?
" What oaken forests, and what golden mines !
" What mints of men, what union of designs !
" Unless their ships do as their fowl proceed
"Of shedding leaves, that with their ocean
breed.
"Theirs are not ships, but rather arks of war,
" And beaked pruinontories sailed from far ;
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OF MARVKLL. 153
** Of floating islands a new hatched nest,
" A fleet of worlds of other worlds in quest ;
" An hideous shoal of wood Leviathans,
** Armed with three tire of brazen hurricanes,
"That through the centre shoot their thundering
side,
" And sink the earth, that does at anchor ride.
" What refuge to escape them can be found,
" Whose watery leaguers all the world surround ?
"Needs must we all their tributaries be,
" Whose navies hold the sluices of the sea 1
" The ocean is the fountain of command,
" But that once took, we civptives are on land ;
" And those that have the waters for their share,
" Can quickly leave us neither earth nor air ;
" Yet if through these our fears could find a pass
"Through double oak, and lined with treble
brass;
" That one man still, although but named, alarms
" More than all men, all navies, and all arms ;
" Him all the day, him in late nights I dread,
" And still his sword seems hanging o'er my head.
" The nation had been oun^, but his one soul
" Moves the great bulk, and animates the whole,
" He secrecy with number hath inchased,
*' Courage with age, maturity with haste ;
L"The valiant*s terror, riddle of the wise, J
"And still his falchion all our knots unties.
" Where did he learn those arts that cost us dear ?
" Where below earth, or where above the sphere ?
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154 THE POEMS
" He seems a king by long succession born,
" And yet tbe same to be a king doth scorn.
^ Abroad a king he seems, and sometlking more,
" At home a subject on the equal floor ;
" Or could I once him with our title see,
" So should I hope yet he might die as we.
" But let them write his praise that love him best,
" It grieves me sore to have thus much confest. "
Pardon, great Prince, if thus their fear or spite,
More than our love and duty do thee right ;
I yield, nor further will the prize contend,
So that we both alike may miss our end ;
While thou thy venerable head dost raise
As far above their malice as my praise ;
And, as the angel of our common weal»
Troubling the waters, yearly mak'st them heal.
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OF MARYELL. 155
A POEM
UPON THB DEATH OF HIS LATE HIGHNESS THE
LORD PROTKCTOU.
That Providence which had so long the care
Of Cromwell's head, and numbered every hair,
Now in itself (the glass where all appears)
Had seen the period of his golden years.
And thenceforth only did attend to trace
What death might least so fair a life deface.
The people, which, what most they fear,
esteem,
Death when more horrid, so more noble deem.
And blame the last act, like ^spectators vain,
Unless the Prince whom they applaud, be slain ;
Nor fate indeed can well refuse the right
To those that lived in war, to die in fight.
But long his valour none had left that could
Endanger him, or clemency that would ;
And he (whom nature all tor peace had made,
But angry heaven unto war liad swayed.
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15G THE POEMS
And so lees useful where he most desired,
For what he least affected, was admired ;)
Deserved yet an end whose every part
Should speak the wondrous softness of his heart.
To Love and Gnef the fatal writ was signed,
(Those nobler weaknesses of human kind,
From which those Powers that issued the decree,
Although immortal, found they were not free)
That they to whom his breast still open lies
In gentle passions, should his death disguise,
And leave succeeding ages cause to mourn,
As long as grief shall weep, or love shall burn.
Straight does a slow and languishing disesise,
Eliza,* Nature's, and his darling, seize ;
Her, when an infant, taken with her charms,
He oft would flourish in his mighty arms.
And lest their force the tender burthen wrong,
Slacken the vigour of his muscles strong,
Then to the mother's breast her softly move.
Which, while she drained of milk, she filled with
love.
But as with riper years her virtue grew,
And every minute adds a lustre new ;
* Elizabeth, Lady Claypole, the Protector's favorite daugh-
ter, died on Friday, 6th August, 1658. ** But as to his High-
ne. sfi, it was observed that his sense of her outw;ir<l misery
ill the pains she endured, took deep impression . ni him. "
Mjiiilstoii, quoted in Carl3'Ie's Cromwell, v<>! . ii. p. 402,
(American edition. )
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OF MARVELL. 157
When with meridian height her beauty shined,
And thorough that sparkled her fairer mind ;
When she with smiles serene, in words discreet,
His hidden soul at every turn could meet ;
Then might youVe daily his affection spied.
Doubling that knot which destiny had tied,
While they by sense, not knowing, comprehend
How on each other both their fates depend.
With her each day the pleasing hours he shares,
And at her aspect ciilms his growing cares ;
Or with a grandsire's joy her children sees.
Hanging about her neck, or at his knees :
Hold fast, dear infants, hold them both, or none ;
This will not stay, when once the other's gone.
A silent fire now wafts those limbs of wax,
And him within his tortured image racks.
So the flower withering, which the garden
crowned,
The sad root pines in secret under ground.
Each groan he doubled, and each sigh she sighed,
Repeated over to the restless night ;
No trembling string, composed to numbers new,
Answers the touch in notes more sad, more true.
She, lest he grieve, hides what she can, her pjiins,
And he, to lessen her*s, his sorrow feigns ;
Yet both perceived, yet both* concealed their
skills.
And so, diminishing, increased their ills.
That whether by each other's grief they fell.
Or on their own redoubled, none can tell.
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And now Eliza's purple locks were shorn,
AVhere she so long h<;r fatlier's fate had worn ;
And frequent lightning to lier soul that flies,
Divides the air and opens all the skies.
And now his life, suspended by her breath,
Ran out impetuously to hastening Death.
Like polished mirroi*s, so his steely breast
Had every figure of her woes exprest,
And with the damp of her hist gasps obscured.
Had drawn such stains as were not to be cured.
Fate could not either reach with single stroke,
But, the dear image fled, the mirror broke.
"Who now shall tell us more of mournful swans.
Of halcyons kind, or bleeding pelicans ?
No downy breast did e*er so gently beat.
Or fan with airy plumes so soft a heat ;
For he no duty by his height excused.
Nor, though a prince, to be a man refused ;
But rather than in his Eliza's pain
Not love, not grieve, would neither live nor
reign;
And in himself so ofl immortal tried.
Yet in compassion of another died.
So have I seen a vine, wiiose lasting age,
Of many a winter hath survived the rage.
Under whose shady tent, men every year,
At its rich blood's exp«ii>e their sorrows cheer;
If some dear branch where it extends its life,
Chance to be pruned by an untimely knife.
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OP MARVELL. 159
The parent tree unto the grief succeeds,
And through the wound its vital humour bleeds,
Trickling in watery drops, whose flowing shape
Weeps that it falls ere fixed into a grape ;
So the dry stock, no more that spreading vine.
Frustrates the autumn, and the hopes of wine.
A secret cause does sure those signs ordain.
Foreboding princes' falls, and seldom vain :
Whether some kinder powers, that wish us well,
What they above cannot prevent, foretell ;
Or the great world do by consent presage.
As hollow seas with future tempests rage ;
Or rather Heaven, which us so long foresees.
Their funerals celebrates, while it decrees.
But never yet was any human fate
By nature solemnized with so much state :
He unconcerned the dreadful passage crost.
But oh ! what pangs that death did Nature cost !
First the great thunder was shot off, and
sent
The signal from the starry battlement :
The winds receive it, and its force outdo.
As practising how they could thunder too ;
Out of the binder's hand the sheaves they tore.
And thrashed the harvest in the airy floor ;
Or of huge trees, whose growth with his did
rise,
The deep foundations opened to the skie? * ;
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160 THE POEMS
Tlien bear J Bhower>t the winged tempests lead,
And |KHir (he deluge o'er the chaon' bead.
Tlie race of warlike hor^H^ at hi« tomb,
Offer theiDiielvetf in many a hecatomb ;
With pensive head towards the ground they fall.
And helpless languii^h at the tainted stall.
Numbers of men decrease with pains unknown.
And hasten (not to see his deatli) their own.
Huch tortures all the elements unfixed,
Troubled to part where so exactly mixed ;
And as through air his wasting spirits flowed.
The world with throes laboured beneath their
load.
Nature, it seemed, with him would nature vie,
lie with Eliza, it with him would die.
He without noise still travelled to his end.
An silent suns to meet the night descend ;
Tiic Htars that for him fought, had only power
Left to determine now his fatal hour.
Which since they might not hinder, yet they
cast
To choose it worthy of his glories past.
No part of time but bart; his mark away
Ol' lionour, — all the yfur was Cromwell's day;
Hut this, of all the most auspicious found,
Twice had in open tielil hi in victor crowned,
Whoii up the armed nuxintains of Dunbar
lie marched, and through (h(;p Severn, ending wai*:
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OP MARYELL. IGl
What day should him eternize, but the same
That had before immortalized his name,
That so whoe'er would at his death have joyed,
In their own griefs might find themselves em-
ployed,
But those that sadly his departure grieved,
Yet joyed, remembering what he once achieved ?
And the last minute his victorious ghost
Gave chase to Ligny on the Belgic coast :.
Here ended all his mortal toils, he laid
And slept in peace under the laurel-shade.
O Cromwell ! Heaven's favourite, to none.
Have such high honours from above been
shown,
For whom the elements we mourners see.
And Heaven itself would the great herald be,
Which with more care set foith his obsequies
Than those of Moses, hid from human eyes ;
As jealous only here, lest all be less
Than we could to his memory express.
Then let us too our course of mourning keep ;
Where Heaven leads, His piety to weep.
Stand back ye seas, and shrunk, beneath the veil
Of your abyss, with covered head bewail
Your monarch : we demand not your supplier
To compass-in our isle, — our tears suffice,
Since him away the dismal tempest rent,
Who once more joined us to the continent ;
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162 THE POEMS
Who planted England on the Flanderic shore,
And stretched our frontier to the Indian ore ;
Whose greater truths obscure the fables old,
Whether of British saints or worthies told.
And in a valour lessening Arthur^s deeds,
For holiness the Confessor exceeds.
He first put arms into Religion's hand,
And timorous conscience unto courage manned ;
The soldier taught that inward mail to wear.
And fearing God, how they should nothing
fear ;
Those strokes, he said, will pierce through all
below.
Where those that strike from Heaven fetch their
blow.
Astonished armies did their flight prepare,
And cities strong were stormed by his prayer ;
Of that forever Preston^s field shall tell
The story, and impregnable Clonmel,
And where the sandy mountain Fenwick scaled,
The sea between, yet hence his prayer prevailed.
What man was ever so in Heaven obeyed
Since the coraraanded sun o*er Gibeon stayed ?
In all his wars needs must he triumph, when
He coFujuered God, still ere he fought with men :
Hence, though in battle none so brave or fierce,
Yet him the adverse steel could never pierce ;
Pity it s( tijied to hurt him more, that felt
Each wuuikI himself which he to others dealt.
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OP MARVEL L. 163
Danger itself refusing to offend
So loose an enemy, so fast a friend.
Friendship, that sacred virtue, long does daim
The first foundation of his house and name :
But within one its narrow limits fall,
His tenderness extended unto all,
And that deep soul through every channel flows,
Where kindly Nature loves itself to lose.
More strong affections never reason served,
Yet still affected most what best deserved.
If he Eliza loved to that degree,
(Though who more worthy to be loved than
she? )
If so^ indulgent to his own, how dear
To him the children of the Highest were !
For her he once did Nature's tribute pay ;
For these his life adventured every day ;
And 'twould be found, could we his thoughts have
cast,
Their griefs struck deepest, if Eliza's last.
What prudence more than human did he need
To keep so dear, so differing minds agreed ?
The worser sort, so conscious of their ill,
Lie weak and easy to the ruler's will ;
But to the good (too many or too few)
All law is useless, all reward is due.
Oh ! ill-advised, if not for love, for shame,
Sparc yet your own, if you neglect his fame ;
Lest oihei-s dare to think your zeal a mask,
And you to govern only Heaven's task.
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164 THE POEMS
Valour, Religion, Friendship, Prudence died
At once with him, and all that's good beside ;
And we, Death's refuge, Nature's dregs, confined
To loathsome life, alas ! are left behind.
Where we (so once we used) shall now no more,
To fetch day, press about his chamber-door,
From which he issued with that awful state,
It seemed Mars broke through Janus' double
gate.
Yet always tempered with an air so mild.
No April suns that e'er so gently smiled ;
No more shall hear that powerful language
charm,
Whose force oft spared the labour of bis arm ;
No more sliall follow where he spent the days
In war, in counsel, or in prayer and praise,
Whose meanest acts he would himvSelf advance.
As ungirt David to the ark did dance.
All, all is gone of oui*s or his delight
In horses fierce, wild deer, or armour bright
Francisca fair can nothing now but weep.
Nor with soft notes shall sing his cares asleep.
I saw him dead: a leaden slumber lies.
And mortal sleep over those wakeful eyes ;
Those gentle rays under the lids were fled.
Which through his looks that piercing sweetness
siied ;
That port, vvliich so majestic was and strong.
Loose, and deprived of vigour, stretched along j
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OF MARVRLL. 165
All withered, all discoloured, pale and wan,
How much another thing, no more that man !
O, human glory vain ! O, Death ! O, wings I
O, worthless world ! O, transitory things !
Yet dwelt that greatness in his shape decayed,
That still though dead, greater than death he laid.
And in his altered face you something feign
That threatens Death, he yet will live again.
Not much unlike the sacred oak, which shoots
To Heaven its branches, and through earth its
roots.
Whose spacious boughs are hung with trophies
round,
And honored wreaths have ofl the victor
crowned.
When angry Jove darts lightning through the air
At mortal sins, nor his own plant will spare,
It groans and bruises all below, that stood
So many years the shelter of the wood,
The tree, erewhile foreshortened to our view,
When fairn shows taller yet than as it grew ;
So shall his praise to after times increase.
When truth shall be allowed, and faction cease ;
And his own shadows with him fall ; the eye
Detracts iVom objects than itself more high ;
But when Death takes them from that envied stuto,
Seeing how little, we confess how great.
Thee, many ages hence, in martial verse
Shall the English soldier, ere he charge, rehearse ;
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166 THE POEMS
Singing of thee, inflame himself to fight,
And, with the name of Cromwell, armies fright.
As long as rivers to the seas shall run,
As long as Cynthia shall relieve the sun,
While stags shall fly unto the forests thick,
While sheep delight the grassy downs to pick.
As long as future time succeeds the past,
Always thy honour, praise and name, shall last !
Thou in a pitch how far beyond the sphere
Of human glory tower'st, and reigning there
Despoiled of mortal robes, in seas of bliss
Plunging, dost bathe, and tread the bright abyss !
There tiiy great soul yet once a world doth see,
Spacious enough and pure enough for thee.
How soon thou Moses hast, and Joshua found.
And Daviti, for the sword and hai-p renowned ;
How straight canst to each happy mansion go,
(Far better known above than here below,)
And in those joys dost spend the endless day.
Which in expressing, we ourselves betray !
For we, since thou art gone, with heavy
doom,
Wander like ghosts about thy loved tomb,
And lost in tears, have neither sight nor mind
To guid»j us upward through this region blind ;
Since thou art gone, who best that way couldst
tracli,
Only our >ighs, perhaps, may thither reach.
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OP MARVELL. . 167
And Richard yet, where his great parent led,
Beats on the rugged track : he virtue d^ad
Revives, and by his milder beams assures ;
And yet how much of them his grief obscures I
He, as his father, long was kept from sight
In private, to be viewed by better light ;
But opened once, what splendour does he throw !
A Cromwell in an hour a prince will grow.
How he becomes that seat, how strongly strains,
How gently winds at once the ruling reins !
Heaven to this choice prepared'a diadem,
Richer than any Eastern silk, or gem,
A pearly rainbow, where the sun inchased,
His brows like an imperial jewel graced.
We find already what those omens mean,
EaHh ne'er more glad, nor Heaven more serene.
Cease now our griefs, calm peace succeeds a war.
Rainbows to storms, Richard to Oliver.
Tempt not his clemency to try his power,
He threats no deluge, yet foretells a shower.
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SATIRES.
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SATIRES
THE CHARACTER OF HOLLAND,
Holland, that scarce deserves the name of
land,
As but the oflf-scouring of the British sand,
And so much earth as was contributed'
By English pilots when they heaved the lead,
Or what by the ocean's slow alluvion fell
Of shipwrecked cockle and the muscle-shell, —
This indigested vomit of the sea
Fell to the Dutch by just propriety.
Glad then, as miners who have found the ore.
They, with mad labour, fished the land to shore,
And dived as desperately fpr each piece
Of earth, as if 't had been of ambergreese.
Collecting anxiously small loads of clay.
Less than what building swallows bear away.
Or than those pills which sordid beetles roll.
Transfusing into them their dunghill soul.
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172 THE POEMS
How did they rivet, with gigantic piles,
Thorough the centre their new-catched miles,
And to the stake a struggling country bound,
Where barking waves still bait the forced
ground.
The fatal bark him boards with grappling fire,
And safely through its port the Dutch retire.
That precious life he yet disdains to save,
Or with known art to try the gentle wave.
Much him the honour of his ancient race
Inspired, nor would he his own deeds deface ;
And secret joy in his calm soul does rise,
That Monk looks on to see liow Douglas dies.
Like a glad lover the fierce fiames lie meets.
And tries his first embraces in their sheets ;
His shape exact, which the bright fiames
enfolds
Like the sun's statue stands of burnished gold ;
Round the transparent fire about him glows,
As the clear amber on the bees does close.
And, as on angels' heads their glories shine,
His burning locks adorn his face divine.
But when in his immortal mind he felt
His altering form and soldered limbs to melt,
Down on the deck he laid himself, and died,
With his dear sword reposing by his side.
And on the fiaming plank so rests his head.
As one that warmed himself, and went to bed.
His ship bums down, and with his relics sinks,
And the sad stream beneath his ashes drinks.
Fortunate boy ! if either pencil's fame,
Or if my verse can propagate thy name.
When CEta and Alcides are forgot,
Our English youth shall sing the valiant Scot.
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180 THE POEMS
Sbip-saddles, Pegasas, thou needst not brag,
Sometimes the galloway proves the better nag.
Shall not a death so generous, when told,
Unite our distance, fill our breaches old ?
So in the Roman foinim, Curtius brave
Galloping down, closed up the gaping cave.
No more discourse of Scotch and English race.
Nor chant the fabulous hunt of Chevy-Chace ;
Mixed in Corinthian metal at thy flame.
Our nations melting thy Colossus frame.
Prick down the point, whoever has the art,
Where nature Scotland does from England
part; —
Anatomists may sooner ^x the cells
Where life resides, and understanding dwelb.
But this we know, though that exceeds our
skill,
That whosoever separates them does ill.
Will you the Tweed that sullen bounder call,
Of soil, of wit, of manners, and of all ?
Why draw you not, as well, the thrifty line
From Thames, from Humber, or at least the
Tyne?
So may we the state-corpulence redress,
And little England, when we please, make less.
What ethic river is this wond'rous Tweed,
Whose one bank virtue, t'other vice, does
breed ?
Or what new perpendicular does rise.
Up from her streams, continued to the skies.
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OF MARVELL. 131
That between us the common air should bar,
And split the influence of every star ?
But *who considers right, will find indeed,
'Tis Holy Island parts us, not the Tweed.
Nothing but clergy could us two seclude,
No Scotch was ever like a bishop's feud.
All Litanies in this have wanted faith.
There's no deliver us from a bishop* s wrath.
Never shall Calvin pardoned be for sales, \
Never, for Burnet's sake, the Lauderdales ;r C
For Becket's sake, Kent always shall have tales. )
Who fcermons e'er can pacify and prayers ?
Or to the joint stools reconcile the chairs ?
Though kingdoms join, yet church will kirk
oppose;
The mitre still divides, the crown does close ;
As in Hogation week they whip us round.
To keep in tim« the Scotch and English bound.
What the ocean binds is by the bishops rent,
As seas make islands in the continent.
Nature in vain us in one land compiles.
If the cathedral still shall have its isles.
Nothing, not bogs nor sands nor seas nor Alps,
Separates the world so as the bishops scalps ;
Stretch for the line their surcingle alone,
'Twill make a more inhabitable zone.
The friendly loadstone has not more combined,
Than bishops cramped the commerce of mankind.
Had it not been for such a bias strong.
Two nations ne'er had missed the mark so long.
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132 THE rOEMS
The world in all doth but two nations bear,
The good, the bad, and these mixed everywhere ;
Under each pole place either of these two.
The bad will basely, good will bravely, do ;
And few, indeed, can parallel our climes,
For worth heroic, or heroic crimes^
The trial would, however, be too nice,
Which stronger were, a Scotch or English vice ;
Or whether the same virtue would reflect.
From Scotch or English heart, the same effect.
Nation is all but name, a Shibboleth,
Where a mistaken accent causes death.
In Paradise names only nature showed.
At Babel names from pride and discord flowed ;
And ever since men, with a female spite,
First call each other names, and then they fight.
Scotland and England cause a just uproar ;
Do man and wife signify rogue and whore ?
Say but a Scot and straight we fall to sides ;
That syllable like a Picts* wall divides.
Rational men's words pledges are of peace ;
Perverted, serve dissension to increase.
For shame extirpate from each loyal breast
That senseless rancour, against interest.
One king, one faith, one language, and one i«le,
English and Scotch, 'tis all but cross and pile.
Charles, our great soul, this only understands ;
He our affections both, and wills, commands ;
And where twin-sympathies cannot alone.
Knows the last secret, how to make us one.
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OP MARYELL. 133
Just SO the prudent husbandman, that sees
The idle tumult of his factious bees,
The morning dews, and flowers, neglected grown,
The hive a comb-case, every bee a drone,
Powders them o'er, till none discerns his foes,
And all themselves in meal and friendship lose ;
The insect kingdom straight begins to thrive.
And all work honey for the common hive.
Pardon, young hero, this so long transport.
Thy death more noble did the same extort.
My former satire for this verse forget,
My fault against my recantation set
I single did against a nation write.
Against a nation thou didst singly fight.
My differing crimes do more thy virtue raise.
And, such my rashness, best thy valour praise.
Here Douglas smiling said, he did intend,
Afler such frankness shown, to be his friend.
Forewarned him therefore, lest in time he were
Metempsychos'd to some Scotch Presbyter.
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134 THE POEMS
A HORATIAN ODE
UPON CROMWELL'S RETURN FROM IRELAND.
The forward youth that woald appear.
Must now forsake his muses dear.
Nor in the shadows sing
His numbers languishing :
'Tis time to leave the books in dusty
And oil the unused armour's rust,
Removing from the wall
The corselet of the hall.
So restless Cromwell could not cease
In the inglorious arts of peace,
But through adventurous war
Urged his active star ;
And, like the three-forked lightning, first
Breaking the clouds where it was nurst,
Did thorough his own side
His fiery way divide ;
(For 'tis all one to courage high,
The emulous, or enemy,
And with such to inclose,
Is more than to oppose ;)
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OF MARVELL.
Then burning througli the air he went,
And palaces and temples rent ;
And Caesar's head at last
Did through his laurels blast.
'Tis madness to resist or blame
The force of angry heaven's flame ;
And if we would speak true,
Much to the man is due,
Who from his private gardens, where
He lived reserved and austere,
As if his highest plot
To plant the bergamot,
Could bj industrious valour climb
To ruin the great work of Time,
And cast the kingdoms old.
Into another mould.
Though Justice against Fate complain,
And plead the ancient rights in vain,
[But those do hold or break,
As men are strong or weak,]
Nature, that hateth emptiness.
Allows of penetration less,
And therefore must make room
Where greater spirits comtj.
What field of all the civil war.
Where his were not the deepest scar ?
And Hampton shows what part
He had of wiser art ;
Where, twining subtile feai*s with hope,
He wove a net of such a scope
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13G THK POKMS
That Charles himself might chase
To Carisbrook s narrow cjisc,
That thence the royal actor borne,
The tragic scaffold might adorn,
While round the armed bands.
Did clap their bloody hands :
He nothing common did, or mean,
Upon that memorable scene.
But with his keener eye
The axe's edge did try ;
Nor called the gods with vulgar spite
To vindicate his helpless right,
But bowed his comely head
Down, as upon a bed.
This was that memorable hour.
Which first assured the forced power ;
So, when they did design
The . Capitol's first line,
A bleeding bead, where they begun,
Did fright the architects to run ;
And yet in that the state
Foresaw its happy fate.
And now the Irish are ashamed
To see themselves in one year tamed ;
So much one man can do,
That does both act and know.
They can aflirm his praises best.
And have, though overcome, confessed
How good he is, how just,
And fit for highest trust.
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OF MARVELL. 137
Nor yet grown stiffer with command.
But still in the republic's hand,
(How fit he is to sway,
That can so well obey ! )
He to the Commons* feet presents
A kingdom for his first year's rents ;
And, what he may, forbears
His fame, to make it theirs ;
And has his sword and spoils ungirt,
To lay them at the public's skirt :
So when the falcon high
Falls heavy from the sky,
She, having killed, no more doth search.
But on the next green bough to perch ;
Where, when he first does lure.
The falconer has her sure.
What may not then our isle presume.
While victory his crest does plume?
What may not others fear,
If thus he crowns each year ?
As Cffisar, he, ere long, to Gaul,
To Italy a Hannibal,
And to all states not free,
Shall climacteric be.
The Pict no shelter now shall find
Within his party-coloured mind.
But, from this valour sad,
Shrink underneath the plaid ;
Happy, if in the tuAed brake,
The English hunter him mistake.
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138 THE POEMS
Nor lay his hounds in near
The Caledonian deer.
But thou, the war's and fortune's son,
March indefatigably on,
And for the last effect.
Still keep the sword erect ;
Beside the force it has to fright
The spirits of the shady night.
The same arts that did gain
A power, must it maintain.
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OP MARVELL. 139
THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY
OF
THB GOVSRNBCKNT UNDRR HIS HIGHKESS
THE LORD PROTECTOR.
Like the vain curlings of the watery maze,
Which in smooth streams a sinking weight doth
raise,
So man, declining, always disappears
In the weak circles of increasing years ;
And his short tumults of themselves compose.
While flowing time above his head doth close.
Cromwell alone, with greater vigour runs
(Sun-like) the stages of succeeding suns,
And still the day which he doth next restore.
Is the just wonder of the day before ;
Cromwell alone doth with new lustre spring.
And shines the jewel of the yearly ring.
'TIS he the force of scattered time contracts.
And in one year the work of ages acts ;
While heavy monarchs make a wide retprn.
Longer and more malignant than Saturn,
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140 THE POEMS
And they, though all Platonic years should
reign,
In the same posture would be found again ;
Their earthly projects under ground they lay,
More slow and brittle than the China clay ;
Well may they strive to leave them on their
son,
For one thing never was by one king done.
Yet some, more active, for a fix^ntier town
Took in by proxy, begs a false renown ;
Another triuraplis at the public cost,
And will have won, if he no more have lost ;
They fight by others, but in person wrong,
And only are against their subjects strong ;
Their other wars are but a feigned contest.
This common enemy is still opprest ;
If conquerors, on them they turn their might,
If conquered, on them they wreak their spite ;
They neither build the temple in their days.
Nor matter for succeeding founders raise ;
Nor sacred prophecies consult within.
Much less themselves to perfect them begin ;
No other care they bear of things above,
But with astrologers, divine of Jove,
To know how long their planet yet reprieves
From the deserved fate their guilty lives.
Thus (image-like) a useless time they tell.
And with vain sceptre strike the hourly bell.
Nor more contribute to the state of things,
Than wooden heads unto the vioFs strings,
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OF MARVKLL. 141
While indefatigable Cromwell tries,
And cuts his way $till nearer to the skies,
Learning a music in the region clear,
To tune this lower to that higher sphere^
So when Amphion did the lute command,
Which the God gave him, with his gentle hand,.
The rougher stones, unto his measures hew^cd.
Danced up in order from the quarries rude 'r
This took a lower, that a higher place,.
As he the treble altered, or the base ;
No note he struck, but a new story laid.
And the great work ascended while he played-
The listening structures he with wonder eyed,.
And still new stops to various time applied ;
Now through the strings a martial rage he
throws,
And joining, straight the Theban tower arose ;
Then as he strokes them with a touch more
sweet,
The flocking marbles in a palace meet ;
But for he most the graver notes did try,
Therefore the temples reared their columns high :
Thus, ere he ceased, his sacred lute creates
The harmonious city of the seven gates.
- Such was that wondrous order and consent,
When Cromwell tuned the ruling instrument ;
While tedious statesmen nmny years did hack,
Framing a liberty that still went back ;
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142 lilK rOKMS
Whose nuinerous gorge coul«l swallow in an hour.
That island which the sea cannot devour:
Then our Amphion issues out and sings,
And once he struck, and twice the powerful
strings.
The Commonwealth then first together came.
And each one entered in the willing frame.
All other matter yields, and may be ruled,
But who the minds of stubborn men can build ?
No quarry bears a stone so hardly wrought,
Nor with such labour fix>m its centre brought :
None to be sunk in the foundation bends,
Each in the house the highest place contends ;
And each the hand that lays him will direct.
And some fall back upon the architect ;
Yet all, composed by his attractive song,
Into the animated city throng.
The Commonwealth does through their cen-
tres all
Draw the circumference of the public wall ;
The crossest spirits liere do take their part,
Fastening the coiitignation which they thwart :
And they who. sti nature leads them to divide,
Uphold, this ones and that the other side ;
But the most e(|iial still sustain the height,
And they, as pillar-, keep the work upright,
While the resistance of opposed minds.
The fabric, as with arches, stronger binds,
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OP MARVELL. 143
Which, on the basis of a senate free,
Knit by the roof's protecting weight, agree.
When for his foot he thus a place had found,
He hurls e'er since the world about him round ;
And in his seveial aspects, like a star.
Here shines in peace, and thither shoots a war,
While by his beams observing princes steer.
And wisely court the influence they fear.
O, would they rather, by his pattern won,
Kiss the approaching, nor yet angry sun,
And in their numbered footsteps humbly tread
The path where holy oracles do lead.
How might they under such a captain raise
The great designs kept for the latter days !
But mad with reason, [so miscalled] of state, •
They know them not, and what they know not,
hate.
Hence still they sing Hosanna to the whore.
And, him whom they should massacre, adore ;
But Indians, whom they should convert, subdue,
Nor teach, but traffic with, or bum the Jew.
Unhappy princes, ignorantly bred.
By malice some, by error more misled,
If gracious Heaven to my life give length.
Leisure to time, and to my weakness strength,
Then shall 1 once with graver accents shake
Your regal sloth and your long slumbers wake,
Like the shrill huntsman that prevents the east;
Winding his horn to kings that chase the bejCst !
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144 THE POEMS
mi then my muse shall halloa far behind
Angelic Cromwell, who outwings the wind.
And in dark nights, and in cold days, alone
Pnrsnes the monster thorough every throne.
Which shrinking to her Roman den impure.
Gnashes her gory teeth ; nor there secure.
Hence oft I think, if in some happy hour
High grace sliould meet in one with highest
power.
And then a seasonable people still
Should bend to his, as he to Heaven's will.
What we might hope, what wonderful effect
From such a wished conjuncture might reflect !
Sure, the mysterious work, where none with-
stand.
Would forthwith finish under such a hand ;
Foreshortened time its useless course would stay,
And soon precipitate the latest day :
But a thick cloud about that morning lies.
And intercepts the beams to mortal eyes,
That 'tis the most which we determine can,
If these the times, then this must be the man v
And well he therefore docs, and well has guessed,
Who in his age has always forward pressed
And knowing not where Heaven's choice may
light,
Girds yet his sword, and ready stands to fight.
But men, alas ! as if ihey nothing cared,
Look on, all unconcerned, or unprepared ;
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OF MARVELL. 145
And stars still fall, and still the dragon's tail
Swinges the volumes of its horrid flail ;
For the great justice that did first suspend
The world by sin, does by the same extend.
Hence that blest day still counterpoised wastes,
The ill delaying, what the elected hastes ;
Hence, landing. Nature to new seas is tost,
And good designs still with their authors lost.
And thou, great Cromwell, for whose happy
birth
A mould was chosen out of better earth,
Whose saint-like mother we did lately see
Live out an age, long as a pedigree.
That she might seem, could we the fall dispute,
To have smelt the blossom, and not eat the fruit, —
Though none does of more lasting parents grow,
Yet never any did them honour so.
Though th^u thine heart from evil still sus-
tained.
And always hast thy tongue from fraud refraincrl,
Thou, who so oft through storms of thundering
lead
Hast borne securely thine undaunted head ;
Thy breast through poniarding conspiracies,
Drawn from the sheath of lying prophecies.
The f>roof beyond all other force or skill.
Our sins endanger, and shall one day kill.
How neai- they failed, and in thy sudden fall,
At oiHH' assayed to overturn us all ?
10
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146 THE POEMS
Our British fury, struggling to be free,
Hurried thy horses, while they hurried thee ;
When thou hadst almost quit thy mortal Ciires,
And soiled in dust thy crown of silver hairs.
Let this one sorrow interweave among
The other glories of our yearly song ;
Like skilful looms, which through the costly
thread
Of purling ore, a shining wave do shed,
So shall the tears we on past grief employ,
Still as they trickle, glitter in our joy ;
So with more modesty we may be true,
And speak, as of the dead, the praises due,
While impious men, deceived with pleasure
short,
'On their own hopes shall find the fall retort.
But the poor beasts, wanting their ^oble guide,
[What could they more ? ] shrunk guiltily aside :
First winged fear transports them far away,
And leaden sorrow then their flight did stay.
See how they both their towering crests abate,
And the green grass and their known mangers
hate,
Nor through wide nostrils snuff the wanton air,
Nor their round hoofs or curled manes compare ;
With wandering eyes and restless ears they
stood,
And with slirill n*i};liiiigs asked him of the wood.
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OP MARVELL. 147
Thou, Cromwell, falling, not a stupid tree^
Or rock so savage, but it mourned for thee ;
And all about was heard a panic groan,
As if that nature's self were overthrown.
It seemed the earth did from the centre tear.
It seemed the sun was fallen from his sphere :
Justice obstructed lay, and reason fooled,
Courage disheartened, and religion cooled ;
A dismal silence through the palace went,
And then loud shrieks the vaulted marbles rent :
Such as the dying chorus sings by turns,
And to deaf seas and ruthless tempests mourns.
When now they sink, and now the plundering
streams,
Break up each deck and rip the open seams.
But thee triumphant, hence, the fiery car
And fiery steeds had borne out of the war,
From the low world and thankless men, above
Unto the kingdom blest of peace and love :
We only mourned ourselves in thine ascent,
Whom thou hadst left beneath with mantle rent,
For all delight of life thou then didst lose.
When to command thou didst thyself depose,
Resigning up thy privacy so dear.
To turn the headstrong people's charioteer ;
For to be Cromwell was a greater thing.
Than aught below, or yet above, a king :
Therefore thou rather didst thyself depress,
Yielding to rule, because it made thee less.
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148 TUB POEMS
For neither didst thou from the first apply
Thy sober spirit unto things too high ;
But in tin'ne own fields exereisedst long
A healthful mind within a body strong.
Till at the seventh time, thou in the skies,
As a small cloud, like a man's hand didst rise ;
Then did thick mists and winds the air deform,
And down at last thou pouredst the fertile i>iovm
Which to the thirety land did plenty bring ;
But thou, forewarned, overtook and wet the king.
What since thou didst, a higher force thee pushed
Still from behind, and it before thee rushed.
Though undiscerned among the tumult blind,
Who think those high decrees by man designed,
'Twas Heaven would not that ere thy power
should cease.
But walk still middle betwixt war and peace ;
Choosing each stone, and poising every weight,
Trying the measures of the breadth and height,
Here pulling down, and there erecting new.
Founding a firm state by proportions true.
When Gideon so did from the war retreat.
Yet by the conquest of two kings grown great,
He on the peace extends a warlike power,
And Israel, silent, saw him rase the tower.
And how lie 8uccoth*s elders durst suppress
With thorns and briars of the wilderness ;
No king might ever such a force have done,
Yet would not he be lord, nor yet his son.
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OP MARVELL. 149
Thou with the same strength, and a heart so
plain,
Didst like thine olive still refuse to reign ;
Though why should others all thy labour spoil,
And brambles be anointed with thine oil,
Whose climbing flame, without a timely stop,
Had quickly levelled every cedar's top ?
Therefore, fii*st growing to thyself a law,
The ambitious shrubs thou in just time didst awe.
So have I seen at sea, when whirling winds
Hurry the bark, but more the seamen's minds,
Who with mistaken course salute the sand,
And threatening rocks misapprehend for land, —
While baleful tritons to the shipwreck guide.
And corposants* along the tacklings slide, —
The passengers all wearied out before,
Giddy, and wishing for the fatal shore, —
Some lusty mate, who with more careful eye,
Counted the hours, and every star did spy,
The helm does from the artless steersman strain.
And doubles back unto the safer main :
What though awhile they grumble, discontent ?
Saving himself, he does their loss prevent.
*Tis not a freedom that, where all command,
Nor tyranny, where one does them withstand ;
* Marine meteors, which Portuguese nuiriners call the
Bodies of the Saints; corpos santos.
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160 TOE POKMS
But who of both the bounders knows to lay,
Him, as their father, must the state obey.
Thou and thy house, like Noah's eight did rest,
Left by the war's flood, on the mountain's crest •,
And the large vale lay subject to thy will,
Which thou but as an husbandman, wouldst till ;
And only didst for others plant the vine
Of Liberty, not drunken with its wine.
That sober liberty which, men may have.
That they enjoy, but more they vainly crave ;
And such as to their parent's tents do press,
May show their own, not see his nakedness.
Yet such a clammish issue still doth rage,
The shame and plague both of the land and age,
Who watched thy halting, and thy fall divide,
Rejoicing when thy foot had slipped aside,
That their new king might the fifth sceptre
shake.
And make the world, by his example, quake ;
Whose frantic army, should they want for men,
Might muster heresies, so one were ten.
What thy misfortune, they the spirit call,
And their religion only is to fall.
Oh Mahomet ! now couldst thou rise again,
Thy Till )in«; -sickness should have made thee nign ;
While Fcak and Simpson would in many a toin**
Have Nvrit the comments of thy sacred foam :
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OF MAUVELL. 151
For soon thou might'st have passed among their
ranty
AVer't but for thine unmoved tulipant ;
As thou must needs have owned them of thy
band,
For prophecies fit to be alcoraned.
Accursed locusts, whom your king does spit
Out of the centre of the unbottomed pit ;
Wanderers, adulterers, liars, Muntzer*s rest,
Sorcerers, atheists, Jesuits, possest.
You, who the Scriptures and the laws deface.
With the same liberty as points and lace ;
O race ! most hypocritically strict,
Bent to reduce us to the ancient Pict,
Well may you act the Adam and the Eve,
Ay, and the serpent too, that did deceive.
But the great captain, now the danger's o*er,
Makes you, for his sake, tremble one fit more ;
And, to your spite, returning yet alive,
Does with himself, all that is good, revive.
So, when first man did through the morning dew.
See the bright sun his shining race pursue,
All day he followed, with unwearied sight.
Pleased with that other world of moving light ;
But thought him, M' hen he missed his setting
beams.
Sunk in the hills, or plunged below the strr. uiis,
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152 THE POEMS
While dismal blacks hung round the universe,
And stars, like tapers, burned upon his hearse ;
And owls and ravens with their screeching noise^
Did make their funerals sadder by their joys.
His weeping eyes the doleful vigils keep.
Not knowing yet the night was made for sleep.
Still to the west, where he him lost, he turned.
And with such accents, as despairing, mourned ;
*' Why did mine eyes once see so bright a ray ?
Or why day last no longer than a day ? '*
When straight the sun behind him he descried,
Smiling serenely from the further side.
So while our star that gives us light and heat.
Seemed now a long and gloomy night to threat.
Up from the other world his flame doth dart.
And princes, shining through their windows, start ;
Who their suspected counsellors refuse.
And credulous ambassadors accuse:
" Is this," saith one, " the nation that we read,
" Spent with both wars, under a captain dead !
" Yet rig a navy, while we dress us late,
" And ere we dine, rase and rebuild a state ?
" What oaken forests, and what golden mines !
" What mints of men, what union of designs !
" Unless their ships do as their fowl proceed
"Of shedding leaves, that with their ocean
breed.
"Theirs are not ships, but rather arks of war,
" And beaked pruinontories sailed from far ;
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OF MARVKLL. 153
** Of floating islands a new hatched nest,
" A fleet of worlds of other worlds in quest ;
" An hideous shoal of wood Leviathans,
** Armed with three tire of brazen hurricanes,
"That through the centre shoot their thundering
side,
" And sink the earth, that does at anchor ride.
" What refuge to escape them can be found,
" Whose watery leaguers all the world surround ?
"Needs must we all their tributaries be,
" Whose navies hold the sluices of the sea 1
" The ocean is the fountain of command,
" But that once took, we civptives are on land ;
" And those that have the waters for their share,
" Can quickly leave us neither earth nor air ;
" Yet if through these our fears could find a pass
"Through double oak, and lined with treble
brass;
" That one man still, although but named, alarms
" More than all men, all navies, and all arms ;
" Him all the day, him in late nights I dread,
" And still his sword seems hanging o'er my head.
" The nation had been oun^, but his one soul
" Moves the great bulk, and animates the whole,
" He secrecy with number hath inchased,
*' Courage with age, maturity with haste ;
L"The valiant*s terror, riddle of the wise, J
"And still his falchion all our knots unties.
" Where did he learn those arts that cost us dear ?
" Where below earth, or where above the sphere ?
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154 THE POEMS
" He seems a king by long succession born,
" And yet tbe same to be a king doth scorn.
^ Abroad a king he seems, and sometlking more,
" At home a subject on the equal floor ;
" Or could I once him with our title see,
" So should I hope yet he might die as we.
" But let them write his praise that love him best,
" It grieves me sore to have thus much confest. "
Pardon, great Prince, if thus their fear or spite,
More than our love and duty do thee right ;
I yield, nor further will the prize contend,
So that we both alike may miss our end ;
While thou thy venerable head dost raise
As far above their malice as my praise ;
And, as the angel of our common weal»
Troubling the waters, yearly mak'st them heal.
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OF MARYELL. 155
A POEM
UPON THB DEATH OF HIS LATE HIGHNESS THE
LORD PROTKCTOU.
That Providence which had so long the care
Of Cromwell's head, and numbered every hair,
Now in itself (the glass where all appears)
Had seen the period of his golden years.
And thenceforth only did attend to trace
What death might least so fair a life deface.
The people, which, what most they fear,
esteem,
Death when more horrid, so more noble deem.
And blame the last act, like ^spectators vain,
Unless the Prince whom they applaud, be slain ;
Nor fate indeed can well refuse the right
To those that lived in war, to die in fight.
But long his valour none had left that could
Endanger him, or clemency that would ;
And he (whom nature all tor peace had made,
But angry heaven unto war liad swayed.
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15G THE POEMS
And so lees useful where he most desired,
For what he least affected, was admired ;)
Deserved yet an end whose every part
Should speak the wondrous softness of his heart.
To Love and Gnef the fatal writ was signed,
(Those nobler weaknesses of human kind,
From which those Powers that issued the decree,
Although immortal, found they were not free)
That they to whom his breast still open lies
In gentle passions, should his death disguise,
And leave succeeding ages cause to mourn,
As long as grief shall weep, or love shall burn.
Straight does a slow and languishing disesise,
Eliza,* Nature's, and his darling, seize ;
Her, when an infant, taken with her charms,
He oft would flourish in his mighty arms.
And lest their force the tender burthen wrong,
Slacken the vigour of his muscles strong,
Then to the mother's breast her softly move.
Which, while she drained of milk, she filled with
love.
But as with riper years her virtue grew,
And every minute adds a lustre new ;
* Elizabeth, Lady Claypole, the Protector's favorite daugh-
ter, died on Friday, 6th August, 1658. ** But as to his High-
ne. sfi, it was observed that his sense of her outw;ir<l misery
ill the pains she endured, took deep impression . ni him. "
Mjiiilstoii, quoted in Carl3'Ie's Cromwell, v<>! . ii. p. 402,
(American edition. )
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OF MARVELL. 157
When with meridian height her beauty shined,
And thorough that sparkled her fairer mind ;
When she with smiles serene, in words discreet,
His hidden soul at every turn could meet ;
Then might youVe daily his affection spied.
Doubling that knot which destiny had tied,
While they by sense, not knowing, comprehend
How on each other both their fates depend.
With her each day the pleasing hours he shares,
And at her aspect ciilms his growing cares ;
Or with a grandsire's joy her children sees.
Hanging about her neck, or at his knees :
Hold fast, dear infants, hold them both, or none ;
This will not stay, when once the other's gone.
A silent fire now wafts those limbs of wax,
And him within his tortured image racks.
So the flower withering, which the garden
crowned,
The sad root pines in secret under ground.
Each groan he doubled, and each sigh she sighed,
Repeated over to the restless night ;
No trembling string, composed to numbers new,
Answers the touch in notes more sad, more true.
She, lest he grieve, hides what she can, her pjiins,
And he, to lessen her*s, his sorrow feigns ;
Yet both perceived, yet both* concealed their
skills.
And so, diminishing, increased their ills.
That whether by each other's grief they fell.
Or on their own redoubled, none can tell.
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15S THE rOK. MS
And now Eliza's purple locks were shorn,
AVhere she so long h<;r fatlier's fate had worn ;
And frequent lightning to lier soul that flies,
Divides the air and opens all the skies.
And now his life, suspended by her breath,
Ran out impetuously to hastening Death.
Like polished mirroi*s, so his steely breast
Had every figure of her woes exprest,
And with the damp of her hist gasps obscured.
Had drawn such stains as were not to be cured.
Fate could not either reach with single stroke,
But, the dear image fled, the mirror broke.
"Who now shall tell us more of mournful swans.
Of halcyons kind, or bleeding pelicans ?
No downy breast did e*er so gently beat.
Or fan with airy plumes so soft a heat ;
For he no duty by his height excused.
Nor, though a prince, to be a man refused ;
But rather than in his Eliza's pain
Not love, not grieve, would neither live nor
reign;
And in himself so ofl immortal tried.
Yet in compassion of another died.
So have I seen a vine, wiiose lasting age,
Of many a winter hath survived the rage.
Under whose shady tent, men every year,
At its rich blood's exp«ii>e their sorrows cheer;
If some dear branch where it extends its life,
Chance to be pruned by an untimely knife.
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OP MARVELL. 159
The parent tree unto the grief succeeds,
And through the wound its vital humour bleeds,
Trickling in watery drops, whose flowing shape
Weeps that it falls ere fixed into a grape ;
So the dry stock, no more that spreading vine.
Frustrates the autumn, and the hopes of wine.
A secret cause does sure those signs ordain.
Foreboding princes' falls, and seldom vain :
Whether some kinder powers, that wish us well,
What they above cannot prevent, foretell ;
Or the great world do by consent presage.
As hollow seas with future tempests rage ;
Or rather Heaven, which us so long foresees.
Their funerals celebrates, while it decrees.
But never yet was any human fate
By nature solemnized with so much state :
He unconcerned the dreadful passage crost.
But oh ! what pangs that death did Nature cost !
First the great thunder was shot off, and
sent
The signal from the starry battlement :
The winds receive it, and its force outdo.
As practising how they could thunder too ;
Out of the binder's hand the sheaves they tore.
And thrashed the harvest in the airy floor ;
Or of huge trees, whose growth with his did
rise,
The deep foundations opened to the skie? * ;
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160 THE POEMS
Tlien bear J Bhower>t the winged tempests lead,
And |KHir (he deluge o'er the chaon' bead.
Tlie race of warlike hor^H^ at hi« tomb,
Offer theiDiielvetf in many a hecatomb ;
With pensive head towards the ground they fall.
And helpless languii^h at the tainted stall.
Numbers of men decrease with pains unknown.
And hasten (not to see his deatli) their own.
Huch tortures all the elements unfixed,
Troubled to part where so exactly mixed ;
And as through air his wasting spirits flowed.
The world with throes laboured beneath their
load.
Nature, it seemed, with him would nature vie,
lie with Eliza, it with him would die.
He without noise still travelled to his end.
An silent suns to meet the night descend ;
Tiic Htars that for him fought, had only power
Left to determine now his fatal hour.
Which since they might not hinder, yet they
cast
To choose it worthy of his glories past.
No part of time but bart; his mark away
Ol' lionour, — all the yfur was Cromwell's day;
Hut this, of all the most auspicious found,
Twice had in open tielil hi in victor crowned,
Whoii up the armed nuxintains of Dunbar
lie marched, and through (h(;p Severn, ending wai*:
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OP MARYELL. IGl
What day should him eternize, but the same
That had before immortalized his name,
That so whoe'er would at his death have joyed,
In their own griefs might find themselves em-
ployed,
But those that sadly his departure grieved,
Yet joyed, remembering what he once achieved ?
And the last minute his victorious ghost
Gave chase to Ligny on the Belgic coast :.
Here ended all his mortal toils, he laid
And slept in peace under the laurel-shade.
O Cromwell ! Heaven's favourite, to none.
Have such high honours from above been
shown,
For whom the elements we mourners see.
And Heaven itself would the great herald be,
Which with more care set foith his obsequies
Than those of Moses, hid from human eyes ;
As jealous only here, lest all be less
Than we could to his memory express.
Then let us too our course of mourning keep ;
Where Heaven leads, His piety to weep.
Stand back ye seas, and shrunk, beneath the veil
Of your abyss, with covered head bewail
Your monarch : we demand not your supplier
To compass-in our isle, — our tears suffice,
Since him away the dismal tempest rent,
Who once more joined us to the continent ;
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162 THE POEMS
Who planted England on the Flanderic shore,
And stretched our frontier to the Indian ore ;
Whose greater truths obscure the fables old,
Whether of British saints or worthies told.
And in a valour lessening Arthur^s deeds,
For holiness the Confessor exceeds.
He first put arms into Religion's hand,
And timorous conscience unto courage manned ;
The soldier taught that inward mail to wear.
And fearing God, how they should nothing
fear ;
Those strokes, he said, will pierce through all
below.
Where those that strike from Heaven fetch their
blow.
Astonished armies did their flight prepare,
And cities strong were stormed by his prayer ;
Of that forever Preston^s field shall tell
The story, and impregnable Clonmel,
And where the sandy mountain Fenwick scaled,
The sea between, yet hence his prayer prevailed.
What man was ever so in Heaven obeyed
Since the coraraanded sun o*er Gibeon stayed ?
In all his wars needs must he triumph, when
He coFujuered God, still ere he fought with men :
Hence, though in battle none so brave or fierce,
Yet him the adverse steel could never pierce ;
Pity it s( tijied to hurt him more, that felt
Each wuuikI himself which he to others dealt.
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OP MARVEL L. 163
Danger itself refusing to offend
So loose an enemy, so fast a friend.
Friendship, that sacred virtue, long does daim
The first foundation of his house and name :
But within one its narrow limits fall,
His tenderness extended unto all,
And that deep soul through every channel flows,
Where kindly Nature loves itself to lose.
More strong affections never reason served,
Yet still affected most what best deserved.
If he Eliza loved to that degree,
(Though who more worthy to be loved than
she? )
If so^ indulgent to his own, how dear
To him the children of the Highest were !
For her he once did Nature's tribute pay ;
For these his life adventured every day ;
And 'twould be found, could we his thoughts have
cast,
Their griefs struck deepest, if Eliza's last.
What prudence more than human did he need
To keep so dear, so differing minds agreed ?
The worser sort, so conscious of their ill,
Lie weak and easy to the ruler's will ;
But to the good (too many or too few)
All law is useless, all reward is due.
Oh ! ill-advised, if not for love, for shame,
Sparc yet your own, if you neglect his fame ;
Lest oihei-s dare to think your zeal a mask,
And you to govern only Heaven's task.
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164 THE POEMS
Valour, Religion, Friendship, Prudence died
At once with him, and all that's good beside ;
And we, Death's refuge, Nature's dregs, confined
To loathsome life, alas ! are left behind.
Where we (so once we used) shall now no more,
To fetch day, press about his chamber-door,
From which he issued with that awful state,
It seemed Mars broke through Janus' double
gate.
Yet always tempered with an air so mild.
No April suns that e'er so gently smiled ;
No more shall hear that powerful language
charm,
Whose force oft spared the labour of bis arm ;
No more sliall follow where he spent the days
In war, in counsel, or in prayer and praise,
Whose meanest acts he would himvSelf advance.
As ungirt David to the ark did dance.
All, all is gone of oui*s or his delight
In horses fierce, wild deer, or armour bright
Francisca fair can nothing now but weep.
Nor with soft notes shall sing his cares asleep.
I saw him dead: a leaden slumber lies.
And mortal sleep over those wakeful eyes ;
Those gentle rays under the lids were fled.
Which through his looks that piercing sweetness
siied ;
That port, vvliich so majestic was and strong.
Loose, and deprived of vigour, stretched along j
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OF MARVRLL. 165
All withered, all discoloured, pale and wan,
How much another thing, no more that man !
O, human glory vain ! O, Death ! O, wings I
O, worthless world ! O, transitory things !
Yet dwelt that greatness in his shape decayed,
That still though dead, greater than death he laid.
And in his altered face you something feign
That threatens Death, he yet will live again.
Not much unlike the sacred oak, which shoots
To Heaven its branches, and through earth its
roots.
Whose spacious boughs are hung with trophies
round,
And honored wreaths have ofl the victor
crowned.
When angry Jove darts lightning through the air
At mortal sins, nor his own plant will spare,
It groans and bruises all below, that stood
So many years the shelter of the wood,
The tree, erewhile foreshortened to our view,
When fairn shows taller yet than as it grew ;
So shall his praise to after times increase.
When truth shall be allowed, and faction cease ;
And his own shadows with him fall ; the eye
Detracts iVom objects than itself more high ;
But when Death takes them from that envied stuto,
Seeing how little, we confess how great.
Thee, many ages hence, in martial verse
Shall the English soldier, ere he charge, rehearse ;
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166 THE POEMS
Singing of thee, inflame himself to fight,
And, with the name of Cromwell, armies fright.
As long as rivers to the seas shall run,
As long as Cynthia shall relieve the sun,
While stags shall fly unto the forests thick,
While sheep delight the grassy downs to pick.
As long as future time succeeds the past,
Always thy honour, praise and name, shall last !
Thou in a pitch how far beyond the sphere
Of human glory tower'st, and reigning there
Despoiled of mortal robes, in seas of bliss
Plunging, dost bathe, and tread the bright abyss !
There tiiy great soul yet once a world doth see,
Spacious enough and pure enough for thee.
How soon thou Moses hast, and Joshua found.
And Daviti, for the sword and hai-p renowned ;
How straight canst to each happy mansion go,
(Far better known above than here below,)
And in those joys dost spend the endless day.
Which in expressing, we ourselves betray !
For we, since thou art gone, with heavy
doom,
Wander like ghosts about thy loved tomb,
And lost in tears, have neither sight nor mind
To guid»j us upward through this region blind ;
Since thou art gone, who best that way couldst
tracli,
Only our >ighs, perhaps, may thither reach.
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OP MARVELL. . 167
And Richard yet, where his great parent led,
Beats on the rugged track : he virtue d^ad
Revives, and by his milder beams assures ;
And yet how much of them his grief obscures I
He, as his father, long was kept from sight
In private, to be viewed by better light ;
But opened once, what splendour does he throw !
A Cromwell in an hour a prince will grow.
How he becomes that seat, how strongly strains,
How gently winds at once the ruling reins !
Heaven to this choice prepared'a diadem,
Richer than any Eastern silk, or gem,
A pearly rainbow, where the sun inchased,
His brows like an imperial jewel graced.
We find already what those omens mean,
EaHh ne'er more glad, nor Heaven more serene.
Cease now our griefs, calm peace succeeds a war.
Rainbows to storms, Richard to Oliver.
Tempt not his clemency to try his power,
He threats no deluge, yet foretells a shower.
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THE CHARACTER OF HOLLAND,
Holland, that scarce deserves the name of
land,
As but the oflf-scouring of the British sand,
And so much earth as was contributed'
By English pilots when they heaved the lead,
Or what by the ocean's slow alluvion fell
Of shipwrecked cockle and the muscle-shell, —
This indigested vomit of the sea
Fell to the Dutch by just propriety.
Glad then, as miners who have found the ore.
They, with mad labour, fished the land to shore,
And dived as desperately fpr each piece
Of earth, as if 't had been of ambergreese.
Collecting anxiously small loads of clay.
Less than what building swallows bear away.
Or than those pills which sordid beetles roll.
Transfusing into them their dunghill soul.
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172 THE POEMS
How did they rivet, with gigantic piles,
Thorough the centre their new-catched miles,
And to the stake a struggling country bound,
Where barking waves still bait the forced
ground.
